


Fools and Their Mamas

by LoveSupreme



Series: Cafe Haifisch [4]
Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Awful German, Confused Boyfriends, Family Drama, Fluff, M/M, Meeting the Parents, Romance, Smut, Terrible Mothers, Wonderful Mothers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-15
Updated: 2015-12-19
Packaged: 2017-11-25 16:10:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 60,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/640652
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LoveSupreme/pseuds/LoveSupreme
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Charles FINALLY gets to meet Erik's mother in person! Sure she doesn't know any English (besides knowing when Erik is cursing and thus requiring a good smack) and sure Charles doesn't have a great history when it comes to mothers, but Erik is sure everything will be stupendous, when he has brain power left over from trying to find a way to ask Charles to move to the Lensherr estate.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Mutti, heute solltest du lächeln,

wenn ich zum Traualtar geh.

Erik rested his chin lazily in the cup of his hand and stared out of the thick window as he caressed his spare fingers absent-mindedly over Charles' palm. He tried to remember if he had told Azazel that the phone bill was due on the 2nd, or that Sean couldn't work the night of the 30th and hadn't found anyone to cover him yet, if he had seemed ambiguous enough on what to do with the cat.

There had been a stray cat haunting the café for the past few weeks and Erik was trying to strike a difficult line between complaining about it constantly but not quite so constantly that anyone at the café felt the need to do anything about its presence. As far as any human being was aware, Erik referred to it only with great annoyance as "that cat." In actuality, when he knew for absolute certainty that he was completely alone, he jovially called it "Charlie"—something his boyfriend had actually once elbowed Erik for calling him (followed by profuse and even tearful apologies). He also gave it tuna, blaming it on the new soft-headed florist next door.

Despite all the perks of this trip it had one serious drawback: no one would be around to give Charlie his tuna.

There didn’t seem to be any help for it though. He’d already wracked his brain more than once trying to think of someone, anyone, he could seriously rely on to both taking care of Charlie _and_ taking his secret to the grave. Everyone at the café was too mouthy, Moira was only good at keeping painful secrets, Raven still wasn’t speaking to him, and the image of Emma wandering around the back alley every day in her white Gucci dress tapping a can of tuna was just a shade too ridiculous to suggest to her.

Maybe Charles would know someone. No, Charles would _definitely_ know someone. People were always willing to do extravagant favors for him, Charles would definitely know someone who would run off to the café at closing every day without asking questions. Except he hadn’t actually told Charles about Charlie…and Charles was currently laughing it up with his new best friend, a buxom flight attendant in her forties.

Erik rolled his eyes and looked back out the window. The man really was incapable of not making friends every goddamn place he went. Well, at least they were on the plane and Erik didn’t have to keep dragging him away from cashiers and TSAs. The mere thought of nearly missing their flight because Charles had to give the fast food broad relationship was enough to aggravate him, and Erik dearly didn’t want to be aggravated right now, so he quickly shifted his mind into a more pleasurable train of thought.

He sucked on the inside of his mouth and could still taste Charles there. His scalp was still sore from where the smaller man had been driven to yank on his hair in that certain frenzy of violence that only sex could send him to. He wasn't certain what their capabilities towards lovemaking were going to be once they arrived in Germany, so to be on the safe side he had decided to suck Charles absolutely dry before they left, and the smaller man had energetically and vocally agreed with that decision.

Only when the Brit was sighing into his ear did he realize the loquacious flight attendant had left to complete her duties.

"You have _got_ to stop making those deliciously pleased sounds," his boyfriend huffed as he laid a pleased kiss to Erik's jaw. " _if_ you expect me to refrain from dragging you into a membership in the Mile High Club."

Erik frowned and sat back in his seat.

"I don't understand why you're so interested in having sex in minuscule, tinny port-a-potties, in front of all and sundry," Erik hissed. They had been arguing about this a lot lately.

Sex in the amphitheater he could get behind, or that submarine they had sight-seen at in the fall, but he really saw nothing sexy about fucking in bathrooms, shower excluded.

"Maybe I'll have you convinced by the trip back," Charles sighed, smiling, ever hopeful.

Erik didn't bother to crush those hopes by assuring the younger man that there was simply no possible way that was going to happen.

They moved on to other, even more detestable topics of conversation.

"How do you think Raven's doing?" Charles asked anxiously for the hundredth time since they'd left her and Azazel at the airport drop-off zone barely an hour ago.

Charles had spent the two minutes it took to get their bags from the car apologizing and pleading with his sister to not feel abandoned over Christmas. Erik had spent it upbraiding Azazel about the cafe: don't forget to give Janos the spare key, don't forget to take care of time-sheets, don't forget-

"Please, stop this," Azazel had finally been driven to growl, face devil-red. "Or I really will impale you."

Raven hadn't said a word, only glared and kicked the ground and pouted like a pre-teen. If Azazel was going to impale anyone, it should be her. Even Erik's threats of bodily harm hadn't been enough to prevail upon her the importance of her refraining from making her brother miserable by showing off how unhappy she was about being left behind for the holidays.

"Why _can't_ I come with you?" she had whined to Erik when he "pretended" to choke her into compliance back at the house. Her pathos left no room for self-preservation.

"Are you seriously asking me why you can't come to _my_ house in Germany to meet _my_ mother for _my_ Jewish holiday?" he had growled back.

She saw no ridiculousness in this situation and nodded tearfully. He had tossed any tactfulness to the wind--that was Charles' concern--and knocked her once on the side of the head, too lightly for her to complain to her brother over it.

"I'm not dating you, you idiot. My mother couldn't care less about meeting you."

She had started bawling immediately, great globbing streams of tears, and because crying always made her more wrathfully violent, she had started hitting him hard enough to bruise so that he had actually had to shout out for Charles to call her off. He knew better than to reply to her violence in kind. Charles was a dear, but he would do nothing but straight murder Erik for laying a harsh hand on his sister.

He rolled his shoulder, sure that he could still feel some of those bruises, days afterwards.

"She'll get over it," he assured. He was certain that Azazel wouldn't mind helping get her over it, so long as sex was still a great way to distract someone, and Erik well knew that it was.

"I'm her only family," Charles started up again, and Erik was sure that he could sprout the rest of this monologue by heart, so he tried.

"And you've never been apart for the holidays before, except for that one time when she wanted to do the Winter Soltice celebration with her Wiccan friends upstate and wouldn't let you come. And even when Reed took you to Majorca in college you insisted that he invite Raven, too," Erik said, and would have continued, but Charles clapped a rueful hand over his mouth and said to him, extremely seriously:

"I really do not appreciate that, Sharky."

Erik blushed: Charles only pulled out the shark references when he was _really_ fed-up with him.

He pushed Charles' hand from his mouth and wrapped an apologetic arm around the man's shoulders, pressing him close to his chest despite the absolutely huge arm rests they had in first class, and affectionately buried his nose in Charles' trimmed hair.

"I'm sorry, dove," he murmured. "I know it's hard."

Charles squeezed him back and pulled away enough to kiss him softly on the mouth.

"Thank you. I'm sorry I referred to you as a murderous ocean stalker."

Erik smiled and would have leaned in those extra few centimeters to kiss him all over again, but someone was hemming their voice clear, and it seemed especially demonstrative.

He looked up just in time to see the burly woman in the second row giving them a dirty look before turning away quickly.

"Is it still the Mile High Club if we do it right here instead of the bathroom?" he questioned, glaring daggers back at the woman who was now pretending to read the safety information. He hoped they crashed simply for the chance of seeing her properly terrified. He took that back immediately though, rubbing Charles' thigh. He supposed technically it wasn't worth it.

The brunet did his best to further distract his boyfriend from his new murderous vendetta against 2-C: The Homophobe Toad.

"Are you excited to see your mother again?"

Erik recognized what the cunning man had done, but couldn't fault him for a job well-done: it was impossible to carry out a vendetta while thinking of his mother, so long as the vendetta did not _include_ his mother.

"Yes, of course," he grinned, and Charles smiled back sweetly in what Erik acknowledged was his most innocent visage. “I can’t _wait_ for her to meet you.”

"And your aunt?"

Erik grimaced and turned away with a growl. "Stop. She's not my aunt."

"Erik-"

"She's technically my father's sister, all right, I'll grant you that--but they were estranged and I've hardly even seen her my whole life. Plus, she's feeble-minded," he accused.

"Erik!" Charles balked.

"Well she is," Erik grumbled unhappily. "She's lucky my mother is so dear and took her in at all--she didn't have to. And now what? My mother does all the work for two people because Irena can't be bothered to take care of herself--or work for herself!--or pay for herself!"

"Your mother likes the company," Charles sighed, sitting back again.

"Some company!" Erik scoffed. "Conversations with her amount to scrounging around for a topic she can't burst into tears over."

"She lost her brother and her husband all in the same year," Charles reasoned. Erik would never have told him the sad woman's history if he had known the brunet would use it against him in arguments. He must have done it back when he was a novice in the art of arguing with Charles.

"Her _estranged_ brother. And it was a marriage of convenience," Erik argued back. It was useless; Charles was incapable of putting stock in so pessimistic an assimilation of the facts.

"I'm sure she still loved her husband, Erik. And the estrangement probably made it even worse, what with the lack of closure," Charles reasoned. Erik gave up; he had grown very adept at doing that when it came to arguing with his boyfriend.

"Believe what you want, dove," he condescended to get in the last word and took out a book as they finally got ready for take-off.

When he realized his book was actually boring (Charles had gotten it for him; it was apparently about young boys during the Holocaust who were friends against the odds. "I thought you liked books about Jewish history," Charles complained. Erik struggled manfully not to roll his eyes) he tossed it away and turned to his boyfriend.

"I'm going to sleep. Wake me up when the food comes?"

"Yes, dear," Charles nodded over some papers he had brought to grade, and then glanced at him jealously. "How do you fall asleep on planes?"

"I can fall asleep anywhere. I have absolute will-power," he said proudly, settling back and putting his feet up.

"This must be how annoying it is when I talk about never getting hangovers."

Erik grinned. "Wait until I brag about it a few more hundred times, then you'll know my pain."


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Erik's got a secret to keep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry that Erik is so hard on Matthew McConaughey. Really.

Charles ordered him some kosher fare, and got in on it himself ("to practice"), and when Erik had scarfed it all down in record time he went immediately back to sleep. He saw no point in spending plane rides awake, especially long ones like this. Unlike Charles, he had no paperwork to keep him busy, and the idea of watching Matthew McConaughey for any period of time made him want to throw himself straight out of the plane. He knew this was first class and they probably offered movies other than Matthew McConaughey, but he didn’t want to risk accidentally seeing one of his movie posters and thus losing his dinner all over the cockpit. Sleeping was much safer.

Yet for the first time he was unable to sleep for the entirety of the flight—a couple hours or so in and he woke with a start, unsure why.

The cabin was dark and hushed, everyone was sleeping. Well, not everyone. Charles had the overhead light on (thus annoying the Homophobe Toad—excellent job) and his science papers still sitting out, foot jangling violently beside him. Had a kick accidentally landed? Was that what had woken him? Then again, the way Charles suddenly turned to him and very innocently said, “Oh, you’re awake!” seemed to point to something less than accidental.

Erik stretched out, resigning himself to the idea that he wouldn’t sleep for the absolute entirety of the flight, it seemed.

“You’re not,” he hummed, cracking his back.

“I can’t,” Charles replied, sounding rather bitter.

Erik laughed in disbelief, flicking the man’s heavy sheaf of papers. “You’re not even trying! Come on, you need to get some rest. Once we hit the ground and get started on your 101 things to do in Erik’s Hometown it’s not even going to feel like a vacation.”

“Ha ha,” Charles intoned.

“I’m serious. This flight is really your only shot to get a good eight hours. We’re going to have to cut back to four hours a night to get through your list.”

“Who can sleep on a damned plane?” the man growled.

“Um, everyone?” said Erik, motioning to other snoozing passengers.

Charles just leaned forward and rubbed his neck, shoving his papers into his bag and rolling his shoulders tensely.

Erik sat up, realizing this was very off for his normally jubilant boyfriend.

“Hey,” he murmured, leaning forward and putting his arm around Charles’ tight shoulders, nuzzling into the man’s soft, clean hair. “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing. I hate flying.”

It was strange enough to hear Charles say that he hated anything, but Erik had never once heard anything about a distaste for flying before, and the man did it often enough for work, after all.

“Since when?” he chuckled anxiously.

Charles didn’t answer, just turned his head closer against Erik’s, moving his hand and taking Erik’s.

“Have you ever met your partner’s parents before?” the man asked, and Erik nearly laughed out loud with relief.

“That’s what this is about?” he said, leaning back into his chair, muscles slowly loosening from their panicked tensing. He'd thought he was going to have to kill someone, making Charles upset like that.

“Well?” Charles whined, sitting up as well. “Have you?”

Reclining back in his seat, Erik reached out and pet Charles’ hair. The man leaned into his touch and then sidled even closer, leaning against Erik’s shoulder over the wide arm rest. Couldn't not have been comfortable.

“No,” he said. “I haven’t.”

“Not one? Not even Magda?”

“Magda’s parents split when she was a kid. She talked to her dad sometimes but they weren’t very close. She hated her mother. She would have cut my tongue out if she’d found out I’d spoken to that woman.”

“That’s awful,” Charles said. He wasn’t sure if the man was referring to Magda not getting along with her parents or if he meant Magda cutting out his tongue. Probably the latter, so Erik was flattered, turning his wrist to stroke Charles’ cheek and hair.

“You don’t need to be nervous, Charles,” he said. “She’s half in love with you already. If I weren’t absolutely sure of your homosexuality I’d hardly trust her around you.”

“Stop it,” Charles laughed, pushing closer against him. Erik couldn’t help but feel the playfulness and ardor of it. If they were in bed together at home, this would be were Erik rolled on top of the smaller man, pinning him to the bed and teasing him most pleasantly. As it was, he glanced around the empty cabin and murmured into Charles’ ear.

“Climb in with me. These seats are big enough for it, and I’ll help you to sleep well enough.”

“You’re terrible!” Charles laughed, but, glancing around himself, the man undid his very loose belt buckle and climbed in half on top of Erik, yanking out a heavy blanket and cuddling up close.

"What are we going to do in Germany, _liebling_? Sleeping arrangements might not be so comfortable."

Charles rolled up onto one shoulder and grinned down at him. "You think fitting two grown men into one first class seat is comfortable? You really must love me." Then he leaned forward and kissed him soundly on the mouth, brushing his tongue against his lips until Erik allowed him to deepen the kiss.

"HEM HEM!" they heard, loud and clear.

Erik unbuckled his seat belt and was all for ripping it from the chair to beat the woman with, but Charles stopped him, plying him with cuddling, pinning him down and nuzzling him as if he could nuzzle the memory of that woman interrupting them right out of his head.

When that didn't quite cover it he tried to add conversation to the distraction.

"Darling, I forgot: what did you have to wake Logan up to talk about this morning?"

Erik swore under his breath. He had been hoping the other man wouldn't have noticed that, or at least that he would chalk it up to random discussion rather than anything serious enough to be asked about afterwards.

"Oh, just about the apartment while we're gone. Just to check on Raven or...stuff," he lied uneasily. He was much better at lying to people who were not Charles. Luckily, Charles refused to believe that a lie would ever leave his mouth, so he didn't have to be particularly good at it to fool the trusting brunet.

"That is so sweet of you," said man murmured, kissing Erik single-mindedly.

They dutifully ignored Homophobe Toad's hemming.

When Charles was snuggled up sweetly to his chest again, settling into sleep apparently, Erik stayed there, tensed up like a first-day whore, thinking. Charles had asked innocently enough, had taken Erik’s response at face value by all appearances. But Erik had learned better than to go with appearances by now when it came to his boyfriend. Was Charles convinced by his lie? Had he simply pretended to be convinced in order to lull Erik into a sense of complacency? Had Charles scrounged for any subject to sway Erik from killing the Homophobe Toad, and randomly fixed on Erik running off to Logan’s apartment this morning? Or had Charles noticed it, bookmarked in his brain, to come back to later and seriously? Had Charles noticed Logan and simply thought it was odd, or had he noticed it and jumped straight to the absolutely correct conclusion?

 _I never should have risked it,_ Erik growled mentally to himself, clenching his fist. What had he been thinking? What had he even gained from it?

“This holiday is a big deal,” Erik had struggled to explain to Logan even though the man was only barely awake enough for a conversation.

“Yeah, yeah, meeting the mom, I get it, it’s important. I don’t know what you expect me to do about it, though.”

“Just keep Raven out of our hair. I don’t want her calling up every minute trying to make Charles feel like shit and ruining everything for me.”

“Oh please,” Logan had yawned, scrubbing his face. “It’s Charles. Everybody loves him. Your mom will love him. What’s Raven going to do that could ruin that?”

“She’s hysterical,” Erik had replied, which wasn’t far off. Murderous, hysterical, what was the difference really. “She could upset him. I can’t have him in an unsavory frame of mind, Logan. I can’t. Please, I need him in a good mood. In a _perfect_ mood. Everything hangs on it. Anyway, you don’t want Charles to be upset, do you? You don’t want her to ruin his vacation, do you?”

“If you didn’t want her to upset him then you should have invited her.”

Erik had been hearing that for weeks, ever since he first invited Charles to come visit his mother in Germany for Hanukkah and, oh, gosh, look at that, Hanukkah just happened to fall during Finals Week. And Charles just so happened to be important enough to pass that shit off on colleagues for one season. Tough luck, Raven.

Charles hadn’t realized that one right away, not until after he’d accepted and Erik had informed his mother, much to her excitement, and he couldn’t get out of it. She’d been wanting to meet Charles for _ages,_ and Erik was actually afraid she’d jump on a plane herself if he kept putting it off. She’d have been happy to have Raven come along, too; she believed in all-inclusive family. But Erik wasn’t feeling as magnanimous.

It wasn’t just that Raven and her brother spent _way_ too much time together as it was; that Charles cancelled dinner dates or just invited her along when he thought she was the slightest bit lonesome; that their quiet movie nights were too often usurped by her blood-splashed favorites (Charles could be gotten very much in the mood by _The Prestige._ He could not be gotten at all into the mood by Raven’s go-to pick, _Texas Chainsaw Massacre_ ); or that arduous nights at Charles’ place were invariably interspersed with purposeful banging around and shouted snide comments like “Hey lovebirds, keep it down!” or “Erik! A little to the left!” which was SO uncomfortable, even when they _weren’t_ doing anything illicit.

All of that was shitty, and made them spend more nights at Erik’s even though Charles’ was closer to work, but it wasn’t what made Erik so insistent on leaving Raven’s ass in America this winter. Well, that wasn’t the _only_ reason, at least.

“Kleiner, you love him, he loves you, just ask him!” his mother was telling him on a weekly basis, proving her saintliness as a mother by _never_ showing an ounce of impatience.

“Mama, if it was just up to love I’d ask him today. I’d have asked him three months ago. But there’s his sister.”

Erik had never actually asked anyone to live with him before, not even Magda. He’d been living in an apartment up past Greek Row, which was loud and smelt of curry at odd times of the day and night, but he was rarely there anyway. In grad school and more so afterwards he’d worked extensively at a restaurant, shadowing the owner and learning everything there was to learn about owning his own café, which he did a couple of years later, still underprepared but extremely determined to succeed.

Magda had said it was ridiculous for them both to pay rent and so moved all her crap into his apartment and thus avoided paying rent completely. She lasted a couple of months before she found the place too smelly and dingy to stand. He’d thought she’d move back into wherever she lived before she met him, or find some other suitable non-curry abode, but instead she’d informed him they were at the age where they should be paying a mortgage instead of rent. They started house shopping, which was fine, because Magda’s father was willing to give them a down payment for a house if they got engaged. Erik had never technically asked Magda to marry him either, but he had gotten her a ring and thus gotten himself a house. That was okay because Magda left the ring and took the down payment back out of their joint account when she left him. They were squares, he guessed.

The difference between his past relationship and his current one was staggering.

“When I ask him to live with me I want him to say yes, Mama. I don’t want to ask him until I’m sure he’ll say yes. If he says no and means it, I’ll die.”

“Don’t talk like that!” his mother had growled back across the line, the way she’d say _Don’t touch that!_ or _Get off of there!_ when he was a kid.

“Just tell me what to say,” Erik had countered, begging. “Tell me what I need to say to get him to live with me. Dad asked you to live with him at some point; you _know_. I _don’t_ know. I’ve never done this before.”

His mother had just shaken her head. “It needs to come from you.”

But Erik knew, easy as she could brush him off from three thousand miles away, it wouldn’t be so easy to avoid his entreaties in person. He would go to Germany, adorable Charles in tow, annoying Raven far away, and _force_ his mother to tell him what to say to be assured of success. And that secret to success coupled with his hometown for Hanukkah and Paris for Christmas would make it absolutely impossible for Charles to say no to him.

If it just came down to love, he wouldn’t be nervous. Charles loved him, more dearly than he’d ever been loved before by someone other than his mother. But did Charles love him more than he loved his sister? Would he abandon his sister and come and live with Erik if he asked? Erik wasn’t sure of his chances on that one. But he had to think that getting Charles thousands of miles from his sister was a step in the right direction towards improving his chances.

“But why can’t she come?” Charles had whispered, kissing Erik’s collarbone as they lay together, approaching sleep and still warm with sweat one night after Raven realized she wasn’t invited and started throwing an absolute shit fit, screaming and crying and railing against the gods and her brother and his shit boyfriend.

“Don’t get into that,” Erik had groaned, pushing the man away from him in order to assure he wouldn’t be seduced into changing his mind.

“I’m serious,” the man pouted, still cuddling close.

“She has finals. My mom’s place isn’t big enough for three. We’re not even going to be there for that long. And, to top it all off, is it too much to want you to myself every now and then?”

“You’ve got me to yourself now,” Charles had chuckled, slipping his hand under the sheets. Perfectly on time, Raven had slammed through the front door of the apartment, making sure she was heard and feared throughout the entire house.

“I hope I’m interrupting something REALLY fun, you assholes!” she’d shouted, and immediately started blasting death metal, the kind of screamer music that gave Charles immediate headaches. Which made it all the more maddening that the man was still trying to appease her rather than beating her down.

“She could come join us after finals. Just for Paris.”

“You’re not joined at the fucking hip!” Erik had snarled. “You can do things without her, you know!” and Charles had retreated into hurt silence at Erik’s explosion. Had he guessed then what was going on? Why Erik was blowing this so out of proportion? If Charles couldn’t leave his sister for one vacation what was Erik’s hope that he’d leave her in order to live with Erik, possibly for the rest of their lives, at least if Erik had his say?

But Charles stuck by Erik’s side, in the end, and told Raven he’d take her to Europe for her birthday, little as that had done to appease the vicious girl, so if Charles didn’t understand exactly why Erik was so upset, he at least understood that he was legitimately upset. Raven had, if it were possible, gone even more mad at that. She expected Erik to be an assholes--he was an asshole. But for Charles to turn against her too, when her tantrum had been doing everything nineteen years had taught her would get him to do what she wanted. She was baffled and livid, and Erik fully planned on turning any parcel that arrived for them from Raven straight into the bomb squad.

“What’s wrong?” Charles asked now, eyelashes catching on Erik’s shirt collar. Erik started slightly—he’d thought the man was sleeping. “You’re all tense.” He forced himself to relax dictatorially.

“I was just thinking.”

“Thinking of what?”

Erik wished he could say, because he was so used to saying everything to Charles. This was the biggest secret he’d ever kept from Charles, something that could change both their lives forever.

“Just thinking.”

What would he actually do if Charles said no? If he said he couldn’t leave Raven? Could Erik continue to date someone, even the love of his life, if there was never going to be a chance for more?

“Well stop it,” Charles whispered, and kissed his cheek softly. So Erik did. 

After all, he didn't put it past Charles to become suddenly psychic and ruin this scheme before it had even come to fruition.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations at the end!

Erik woke up again when everyone was being forced to put their seatbacks back to normal, give up their drink cups, and shut down all their shit. The first thing he noticed was that Charles was back in his own seat and fully awake, looking as if he’d been in this state for a while.

  
“Did you manage to get any sleep?” he asked.

  
His response was a flat gaze from exhausted-looking soft blue eyes. He put his hands up in apologetic forfeit.

  
The second thing he noticed was that the Homophobe toad was not flashing eyes at him as he rubbed Charles’ back, and instead some old man was happily unwrapping candies in her stead.

  
“You didn’t,” he grinned at Charles.

  
“Diana simply suggested the woman would be more comfortable in coach. Where she wouldn’t have to deal with gay people or people reading with their overhead lights on or men’s non-existent snoring.”

  
“I don’t snore!”

  
“I think I’d have noticed if you did.”

  
“Was she pissed?” Erik asked avidly.

  
Charles pretended to be engrossed in his book, but allowed a small smile that lifted all Erik’s hopes and kept his imagination thrumming all the way to the customs line.  
Getting through customs was simple, and Erik was glad that Charles was considered an EU citizen so they could breeze through the relatively smaller line there. He looked everywhere for the Homophobe toad to give her a cheery wave, and finally found her fuming in the non-EU, fuming but not looking up. She refused to look up even with his litany of mental commands, so he took the opportunity to tell the customs official that he suspected she was trafficking drugs.

  
"What is that about?" Charles questioned, watching the official talk in rushed, clipped sentences to his walkie-talkie.

  
"It's nothing. German is just a serious-sounding language," Erik shrugged, trying to chock up his beaming smile to the joy of being in Germany again and not the pure enjoyment of wreaking havok without Charles being able to stop him. He was going to have to make full use of this blessing before they went to Paris and Charles' French skills would thwart similar tricks.

  
"Tell me if you see that woman at the carousel," Charles requested, rubbing his eyes, apparently deciding not to worry about the walkie-talkie man. “I feel like I should apologize. For asking Diana to shove her off I mean. I think I was just tired and then the way she looked at you when she said if you were going to snore like that she was going to get you put down with the luggage…”

  
If Erik had had any lingering qualms about getting the woman strip searched by airport security, he didn’t any more, and he didn’t want Charles to either. "Don't. Her replacement was way better."

  
"He was pretty nice," Charles admitted with a tired grin.

  
"Anyone who travels with enough lemon drops to share with all of first class is fucking awesome in my book," Erik said, taking their passports back from the customs attendant and marching them to their bags.

  
They got to the carousel just as the first bags were coming off, and Erik had fully expected Charles to whip out his camera and start the photo-journal from their first step into Germany proper, but instead the man sat on the brim of carousel, put his chin in his hands, and blinked slowly, like a toddler overdue for a nap.

  
“You look so dead,” Erik chuckled morbidly, stroking Charles’ hair back.

  
“I don’t supposed we could stop off at a hotel room for a few hours nap before heading off to Heidelberg, eh?”

  
“You can always sleep on the train.”

  
To that Charles just pulled a face, as if Erik were crazy.

  
“Do you remember that road trip we took to the beach last summer?”

  
Erik knew exactly what Charles was talking about because it was the only other vacation they had ever taken together without Charles’ sister (only because she’d started hooking up with Azazel and didn’t want Charles around to catch them—the man still had his heart set on Hank asking for her hand in marriage and thus becoming his brother). He realized what Charles meant.

  
“You get carsick in trains too?”

  
“Only when it moves. And for some reason I think it’ll be a lot harder to pull the thing over for me to sick up on the side of the road.”  
  


“Well, I’ll hold your hair back again regardless.”

  
Charles looked up and smiled at him then, eyes so blue even when they were tired, and he pulled Erik closed by his belt loops, nuzzling into his stomach.

  
“You’re an amazing boyfriend, love. Sorry I’m going to be so brain dead today. Do you know a good German energy drink I could chug before we hit Heidelberg?”

  
“I’m sure they’ve got some mini mart at the airport, or maybe at the train station.”

  
"Are we taking a cab to your mother's house or did you want to rent a car?"

  
"My mother's lived here for ten years with no car; I think we'll survive a couple weeks without one."

  
"I'm not arguing," Charles pointed out.

  
Erik chuckled and eased the younger man's heavy head off him as he saw their bag approaching.

  
"You don't think we should have packed more?" Charles questioned, eying their one big bag as Erik wrestled it beside their two little carry-ons.

  
"I've got another suitcase at my mom's we can use for all your inevitably kitschy souvenirs," he grinned, pulling Charles to his feet. He yanked his German phone out of his satchel to tell his mother they had arrived. It would still be a few hours before they could get there by train, but she’d probably use every last second to clean the apartment one more time, and make them a delicious dinner, so it was a good idea to let her know as early as possible.

  
"I didn’t hear you complaining about my kitschy souvenirs when I got you that shot glass from Texas.”

  
“Only because I love you and would never tell you that Texas shot glasses the size of coffee mugs are not the height of hilarity,” Erik said, more focused on the phone, which kept ringing and finally went to an automated voicemail. He frowned at the cell--it wasn't like his mother not to answer her phone, especially when she was expecting him to call.

  
He tried again as they left the security area, handing their meager custom's receipt to the attendant, only able to frown when Charles wrested the larger bag from him.

  
"What—Erik!" Charles gasped suddenly—Erik was immediately sure that Homophobe Toad had escaped police custody and was coming to murder them, jerking upright to get ready to fight her off, but stopped before adrenaline could make him throw Charles to the floor out of the line of danger. He didn’t see any huge pink monstrosity hurtling towards them, and thus had to suss out another reason for Charles’ shock. The man had stopped in his tracks, forcing Erik to stop with him, staring into the crowd awaiting the departing passengers.  Before Erik could turn and try to figure out what he was staring at, the mystery was cleared up by an excited, "Kleiner!"  
  
Even if he hadn’t recognized the voice, there was only one person in all the world who would shout“Kleiner” at him.

  
Sure enough, looking up, he saw his mother waving cheerily from behind the barrier, bundled up adorably in her ankle-length woolen coat with her requisite old-lady shawl wrapped over her graying hair.

  
He and Charles exchanged a surprised glance, oblivious to the other passengers bumping past them, and Charles said, a little shakily, "I thought we were meeting her in Heidelberg! I thought I had more time!"

  
Erik brain still hadn’t recovered enough to think of anything to say to that, so he didn’t say anything, only led his boyfriend at a clipped pace to his mother and accosted her in German.

  
" _Mama! What are you doing here? I told you we'd meet you at home! You didn't have to come all the way out here all by yourself! Anything could have happened to you_!"

  
His mother ignored his tirade completely, beaming at Charles, taking him all in in flushed wonder and keening, saying " _Ach, kleiner! He is even more handsome in person! Oh, I can’t believe I’m finally meeting you, kleiner Spatzi!_ " and taking the man's face in her hands, she wrestled the man down to kiss him on each cheek. Erik imagined this was one of the few times Charles had to lean down to be kissed by someone: his mother was a very small woman, and somehow seemed even smaller this year. She barely came up to Charles’ shoulder, and she was wearing heels, technically.

  
" _Guten Tag, Frau Lensherr_ ," Charles coughed nervously, recovered from all fatigue and blushing up to his ears at her hands-on greeting.

  
Edie gasped and snatched Erik's arm, eyes lit up with joy. " _And he speaks German! Oh, kleiner_!"

  
" _Ach, nein, Mama,_ " Erik said, shaking his head. " _Charles just swallowed his guide book."_

  
Edie gazed up at Charles in rapturous delight and pet his arm admiringly.

  
" _Frau Lensherr--nein,"_ she instructed him, and put her thin hand over her chest. " _Mutti_."

  
Charles jumped in surprise, eyed her nervously, glancing at Erik as if to make sure it was okay. With Edie's hand goading him on, he smiled awkwardly and finally gave in.

  
"Ah, well, ahem, _ja_ —er... _Mutti_."

  
Erik smiled, blushing a bit himself. He had not been expecting so much adorableness so soon.

  
"Okay, okay," he muttered, motioning them forward. "Let's catch the train. _Komm, laß uns gehen, Mama."_

  
Edie tried to wrestle Erik for his bag, and when that failed she attacked Charles, who was no good at fending off old women and was thus divested of his smaller bag, although he managed to keep a tenuous hold on the larger one.

  
"Your mum's strong," he muttered to Erik, massaging his arm where Edie had wrenched it going after his luggage.

  
"You just need to man up and shove her back," Erik suggested. Charles squinted at him grimly. God, the man actually thought he was joking...

* * *

 

  
They had just barely missed the train while buying tickets, and stood off to themselves on the platform so that Edie and Erik could exchange energetic German, each demanding extensive news on each other's health. (" _What did you eat on the plane? That's no good--I'll make matzoh when I get you home. You're too thin." "What do you mean you stood on the subway? No one got up for you? You should have made someone get up! Here, sit on the suitcase.")_ Erik held Charles in the curve of his arm out of habit and tried to ignore his mother's starry-eyed glancings about it. It was hard to remember that, as natural as he felt being with Charles, touching him, holding him, kissing him even, it would be hard for Edie to get used to: Erik had never brought anyone home to meet his mother before.

  
Charles rested his head on Erik’s shoulder and leaned heavily against him, and Erik realized the man was slowly flagging in face of an entire conversation in a language he couldn’t understand.

  
“Sorry, dove. I guess I didn’t think about how this would pan out with the language barrier.” Charles just made a humming noise, too tired for words at this point apparently, or maybe only half awake.

  
" _Is he tired?"_ his mother questioned, looking on in concern.

  
" _He didn't sleep on the plane."_

  
" _He seemed so energetic in the airport."_ she frowned.

  
" _He was excited to meet you,"_ said Erik.

  
"Are you talking about me?" Charles murmured, forcing himself to stand on his own and blinking the tiredness out of his eyes owlishly. He seemed to come to the conclusion that this sort of stupor was not what he wanted Edie's first impression of him in person to be made of and stared at her in embarrassed shock.

  
 "Oh my- _Ich_...um... _ent...schuldig..."_ he gave up with a high blush and turned to Erik, tugging on his arm pleadingly. ”I'm very very exceedingly sorry."

  
" _Ich entschuldige mich,"_ Erik supplied with a chuckle, proud that Charles repeated it after him instead of letting it stand as if Erik were his own voice box.

  
Edie keened at his adorable accent and jumped up to clutch him to her side out of an effusion of emotion.

  
" _He is the most adorable Spatzi. I can't wait to get him home and coddle him properly."_

  
" _What about me?"_

  
" _I've got enough coddling in me for the both you,"_ she argued, flicking her hand at him.

  
"What is she saying?" Charles asked, glancing between Edie pressed up on his left and Erik on his right. Erik realized that for the brunt of this vacation he would be relegated to translator. Oh well.

  
"She says you're in for the coddling of a lifetime when she gets you to Heidelberg. You're not allergic to coddling are you?"

  
"I'm not sure, I've never been coddled before," Charles admitted in a sort of daze.

  
"What are you talking about? I coddle you all the time!"

  
"No, you dote on me. Only mothers coddle."

  
Erik mulled that over, shifting the three of them apart as the airport express finally lugged up.

  
He knew the analytical facts of Charles' relationship with his mother, and the more emotional bits of it from Raven, but he wasn't sure how much of that was womanly exaggeration. Charles had told him that his mother was rather distant with him after his father died, and Raven had said that she was a neglectful alcoholic nymphomaniac. Erik supposed the truth struck somewhere in the middle, but the middle was a wide swath of land and Erik wasn’t sure exactly towards which end of the spectrum the truth was housed.

  
They stored their luggage and settled in for the short train ride, Erik acting as amused intermediary as Edie pumped Charles for information.

  
" _Ask him what he likes to eat."_

  
 _"Mama, I've been dating him for over a year. I know what he likes to eat."_

  
" _We shouldn't leave him out of the conversation, though, kleiner,"_ she insisted, staring at Charles avidly and asking him herself, " _Spatzi, what do you like to eat? Hm?"_ miming eating to him to help.

  
" _Ich haben Hunger?"_ Charles questioned. Edie clapped with joy at his German but shook her head once she recovered from the ecstasy and Erik came to the rescue once again.

  
"What do you want to eat? She's bursting at the seams to cook for you," Erik explained.

  
"Oh, whatever, I'm not picky." Charles waved the question off.

  
"That's not going to cut it, _Spatzi_. You're going to have to come up with something concrete."

  
"What does that mean, ‘ _Spatzi_ ’? She was saying it, too."

  
Erik laughed. "It means little sparrow. She must not think we're grown enough: I'm _Kleiner_ and you're _Spatzi_."

  
Charles blushed beautifully. "She has a pet name for me?"

  
"It's not quite 'brightness' or 'dove', but I guess it'll do," Erik allowed, and then recognized that this was the perfect opportunity to ask. "Didn't your parents have a pet name for you?"

  
"My nanny used to call me 'princeling'. I think maybe my father called me 'kitten'." When Erik eyed him curiously he continued. "It was in one of his journals. I don't think we ever had an actual kitten and it was before Raven, so I just assumed he was talking about me..."

  
" _What are you talking about?"_ Edie interrupted. " _Did you ask him about the food?"_

  
" _Ach, Ich hätte es fast vergessen._ Come on, she's still pumping me for food information. Just name literally any kosher meal just to fend her off."

  
"Okay, what about...um...Brathering."

  
Erik scoffed. "That is not what you want to eat. You looked that up in your travel book."

  
Charles pouted. "That doesn't mean that's not what I want to eat."

  
" _Brathering? Is that what he said?"_ Edie jumped in.

  
" _He was joking. He said macaroni and cheese."_ It wasn't really a lie, after all: mac and cheese was Charles' go-to happy food, seldom as he chose to admit it.

  
Edie beamed, obviously thinking off all the mac and cheese she would be making her new love. Erik smiled likewise, seeing his mother so happy. It was even more apparent outside of Skype: seeing her this happy in person was somehow more impressive than through the computer screen. He moved seats to squeeze in next to her and wrap his arm around her small bundled body, holding her close. She felt frail-boned in the circle of his arm, but her vitality was still evident. She held him back tightly and leaned up to kiss his cheek and pet his hair.

  
" _Oh, mein Kleiner,"_ she hummed, cuddling into him. “ _Look at my beautiful boy all grown up.”_

  
Charles smiled at them thoughtfully, his eyes far away, and then suddenly blinked back into awareness, yanked out his camera and took their picture.

  
"Hey, stop that," Erik growled half-heartedly.

  
" _Now you two!"_ Edie cheered. " _I need more pictures of the two of you."_ And she pushed Erik away back to his boyfriend, taking the camera.

  
She sighed and beamed into the camera screen, glancing up at them as if she were about to cry she was so happy. It was hard to see his mother so emotional, and Erik had to hold tighter to his own emotional control before it slipped any.

  
“ _Mama, stop.”_

  
" _I can’t help it. You two are so handsome together_ ," she sniffled, taking the picture and wiping her eyes.

  
" _Schön_ \--doesn't that mean pretty?"

  
“She says we're a handsome couple."

  
Charles' pulled back to glance at him. “No arguments there,” he said, kissing his cheek. Edie snapped another picture like a proper paparazzi.

  
" _Ach, Mama--gib mir die Kamera."_

  
" _You need some good mothering: you're getting cranky,"_ she fussed.

  
"You should be nice to your mother," Charles yawned, and probably would have managed to come up with a few other choice recommendations (he could never stop at just one), but they arrived at Haubtbahnhof and had to get off.

  
"You two stay here and play charades," Erik suggested on the platform. "I'll go buy our tickets."

  
“You’re leaving us alone together?” Charles questioned, glancing at Edie nervously.

  
“I won’t be long. Don’t be scared.”

  
Charles frowned, drawing himself up proudly. “I’m not scared. I’m just trying to think of how to mime ‘baby pictures’.”

"You wouldn't," Erik scoffed, but he could tell by the gleam in Charles' eye that he definitely would.

Erik made sure to hurry.

  
"That was quick, _mein Windhund,"_ Charles teased when he came back panting. "But you're too late, I'm afraid."

  
"No way," Erik scoffed. He really had made record time. He had physically shoved in front of a tourist couple to get the goddamn tickets, hadn't even bothered getting Senior fare for his mother.

  
"It was surprisingly easy. Your mother catches on quick."

  
" _Mama, what have you done?"_

  
Edie shrugged non-committedly. " _It's just a couple. Just what I had on me."_

  
"It was nice to see that your smile is still cute with no teeth. I've got something to look forward to when we're eighty," Charles teased. It didn't manage to abash Erik since it implied they'd still be together when they were eighty and Erik loved that implication.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations (or the closest I could get):  
> Komm, laß uns gehen: Let's go.  
> Ach, Ich hätte es fast vergessen. : I almost forgot.  
> Gib mir die Kamera. : Give me the camera.


	4. Chapter 4

The train rocked side to side, gently, the soft rattling of the wheels nearly putting Erik to sleep. But when he turned to look at Charles across the aisle and one seat back, the man was still awake, focusing on his book and looking slightly green and very exhausted. The man in the seat next to him, an older man in a fedora, glanced at Erik, then to Charles, then back, his eyes seeming to say _You don’t think he’s going to puke all over me, do you? I really hope this kid does not puke all over me…_

Erik’s hackles trembled, a feeling of tightening skin and expanding ire. _He_ should be sitting next to Charles. Not some guy who would be upset if Charles puked on him. This guy should feel _lucky_ someone as good as Charles would puke on him. There were way worse people in the world who could puke on him.

He _couldn’t_ sit next to Charles, though, and the reason for that rubbed his hand and kissed him on the shoulder.

“ _I’ve missed you, Kleiner,_ ” his mother murmured, hugging his arm over the armrest. She still had her jacket on, even though it was very warm in the compartment and both he and Charles had taken theirs off, stuffing them on the overhead storage with their carry-on bags before collapsing into their assigned seats. “ _But you didn’t have to sit with me. You and Charles should have taken the double seats_.”

Erik sat straight in his chair, trying to stop looking as if he thought the same. There were three of them. Seats came in twos. Someone had to sit on their own. Charles was the one who had fought for the single seat despite his fatigue, absolutely insisting Erik and his mother sit together, “catch up”. How could Erik undo all the man’s hard work now? Charles would never let him.

“ _I can sit next to Charles any time. It’s not every day I get to sit with my mother. Besides, Charles wasn’t taking any arguments_.”

Edie tsked, frowning, or maybe even pouting. “ _Imagine! Not letting an old woman have her way! He’s as bad as you._ ”

“ _That’s why we’re so good together_ ,” Erik said smugly, and to his horror, his mother teared up immediately. “ _Mama! What the hell—what is it_?”

She smacked him on the arm and wiped her eyes. “ _Don’t curse! And I…I was just thinking how happy you are. And that I wish your father were here, to see you like this…to see our baby so happy…_ ”

Erik’s chest felt too tight suddenly. He didn’t talk about his father much, even though he’d died years ago. The memory still seemed too close to him, too recent to discuss easily.

“ _I miss him too_.”

Edie smiled up at him, sad and yet bright.

“ _So_?” she murmured, nudging him. “ _Have you asked him_?”

Tensing up nervously, Erik glanced back to make sure Charles wasn’t listening.

The man was talking, smiling apologetically to his seat mate, who was smiling back, fully smitten, pulling out a bag of peppermints and unwrapping one for Charles. God damned seductress, what was the brunet doing making friends on every leg of their trip?

“Erik?” his mother reminded and he snapped out of it, turning back. He bristled still, though.

“ _You know I haven’t, mother! If I’ve told you once I’ve told you a million times: not until I know he’ll say yes_.”

“Oh _Kleiner_!” his mother sighed, rolling her eyes dramatically.

“ _Well_?” he argued back, rather petulantly. “ _What’s wrong with that_?”

“ _What are you waiting for? A signed guarantee_?”

“ _Yes_ ,” Erik grumbled.

“ _It doesn’t work that way_.” Erik didn’t know anything about that. This was his first time in love: he had no idea what worked which way.

“ _Well, then, barring that, proper parental advice_.”

His mother actually groaned at this, so maybe she wasn’t as patient about his round-and-round conversation as he’d imagined. “ _Oh, you’ve said this before. What am I supposed to say? How am I to pick better words than you? You know him, Erik, better than anyone. What can anyone teach you about what to say to him_?”

“ _How did Papa ask you to live with him? What made you say yes? What was the trick_?”

Edie just shook her head. “ _Ask me to live with him! He asked me to marry him. Then, after we were married, I moved in him with him and his parents. The next year he got a job in Heidelberg and we moved here and got our own apartment. That’s how you did it back then: you dated, you got engaged, you got married, you moved in together, you had babies. Fine by me, that was perfect for me. It was different, all different back then. You kids live more, today, you have crazy lives. You study in Spain, you move to America, boys meet boys, I wouldn’t know what to tell you_.”

Erik thought, miserably. What was he hoping for? A magic spell? His mother would teach him one thing and that one thing would convince Charles to throw off his sister and live with him? No, it wasn’t that. Erik wasn’t as naïve as that. He realized suddenly what it had to be then.

_I’m doing something scary, and I want my mother._

Shifting, Erik bent and leaned his head on his mother’s shoulder.

“ _I just want everything to be okay_.”

Edie reached up and pet his hair, turned her head until he could feel her warm breath on his scalp.

“ _Baby_ ,” she murmured, lips catching on his hair. “ _Do you remember when you first started school? In Ireland?_ ”

Of course Erik did, although he hated being reminded of it. He’d left all his friends behind in Germany, he barely spoke any English, he didn’t know anyone, in a community where most of the children had gone to the same nursery since infancy.

“ _You were picked on, bullied—I could have strangled those children, but I couldn’t even talk to them, couldn’t even talk to their parents about controlling them. Every day you came home in tears—‘Don’t make me go back, Mutti. Let me stay home with you’. It broke my heart to send you back, day in, day out. I’d tell you, just a little longer, Liebling. Everything will be okay. Just give it time. And I was right. Eventually you stopped coming home crying. It wasn’t that you made friends, exactly—you were such a solitary child. But you learned to get by. Everything turned out okay_.”

Erik sat in confusion at his mother’s story. That had been a truly miserable time in his life. She was right that he hadn’t made friends, that that wasn’t what had made his life easier. He’d never forgiven those kids for making fun of him, for bullying him. Eventually he’d simply grown a thicker skin. He loathed the thought of letting those kids see him cry, refused to let them know they had any effect on him. Was she saying he simply had to grow an even thicker skin now? That he had to grow tough enough not to care if Charles told him no? Cold as his heart was, it would truly have to turn to ice for him to not care about a thing like that.

But just when he was about to bristle at his mother’s suggestion, the woman kissed him and said, “ _As scared as you are now, Kleiner, it’s not like then. You aren’t on your own. You don’t have to survive by yourself. You have Charles now, to lean on, to help you. Let him lessen your load. Just talk to him. I haven’t known him long, but I don’t think he’ll disappoint you_.”

“ _How do you know_?” he murmured. “ _How do you know he’ll say yes_?” How did she know he’d say yes when he wasn’t even sure he’d say yes?

“ _He loves you. He knows that you love him. He’d have to be mad to say no, and we know he’s not mad_.”

“ _But his sister_ ,” Erik groaned, shaking his head. “ _He’s not going to do anything to upset his damned sister!_ ”

“ _Hey_ ,” his mother sighed, patting his cheek. “ _He came here, didn’t he? Even though she was upset?_ ”

Erik had to admit that was true. It had taken some work, but Charles had finally agreed with him, that it was best she didn’t come, even though it sent Raven into a murderous spiral of outrage. But that was two weeks upset, and even that had been hard to come by, had taken cajoling and arguments and ultimatums on Erik’s part.

With a frown Erik sat up, rolling his sore shoulders.

“ _How’d we get on such a maudlin subject? You’ve been hanging out with Irena too much. I think it’s time she moved out_.”

“ _Tante Irena! And it’s her home, too_ ,” his mother corrected him, allowing him to change the subject. She was better at emotional conversations than his father had been, offering something other than a manly punch on the shoulder and a gruff ‘There’s a good boy,’ but that didn’t mean she wanted to live her whole life in a deep emotional discussion. She cried so easily she’d run the risk of dying of dehydration within a day.

“ _Honestly, mom, why do you bother with her? She only even got in touch with us because she needed someone new to mooch off of after her husband died and she figured dad must have left you something_.”

Of course his mother wasn’t about to let him say something so rude without a fight, so they sat there bickering back and forth, intensely but without bitterness. Edie was still the only person Erik knew who could argue with him without letting him push her around, maybe because Erik would never under any circumstances dream of pushing her around.

“ _Watch it_ ,” she said once, tapping his mouth when he said ‘damn’ and he grabbed her hand and kissed it and that was the end of it. He still loathed Irena, but he loved his mother more than ever.

“ _Listen to you running your mouth_ ,” Edie sighed. “ _How could Charles possibly withstand you_?”

And that gave Erik more hope than anything else.

* * *

 

“Wait,” Erik said, whipped by the cold as he stood on the sidewalk where the taxi abandoned them.

Charles and Edie ahead of him shivered but stopped, his mother unsuccessfully attempting to use the distraction to get the heavy bag away from Charles. The man swayed on his feet, soft blue bags under his bleary eyes, but held on, hunkering down against the icy wind. Erik felt bad but couldn’t help himself. He had to have a moment, to take it all in—his old street, his old post office box, his old childhood apartment.

When he was ten, his father had moved them lock stock and barrel across the Channel to Ireland. Jakob was nothing if not an Irishman born in a German’s body, and the Green Isle was where his heart belonged. Erik had gotten used to it, he had been too young not to, but it never had the same sense, the same taste or texture as Germany. When his father died, Erik was living in America, and although his mother was welcome to live with him and Magda (and had for a disastrous year of embittered and trans-lingual catfights), she wasn’t any more at home in that English-speaking country than in the original. When Irena begged to move in with the lot of them, Edie claimed to have a better idea. Using Jakob’s retirement and Erik’s “loan” (there was a check he’d certainly never cashed), she’d gone back to Germany and bought back their old apartment. The exact same one.

Erik had never much thought about it, even seeing it on Skype, it seemed too miraculous to be real. But standing there on the sidewalk, looking up at the same window he used to throw water balloons out of, the tree down the block he’d carved his and his ‘girlfriend’s’ names into (his mom had thrashed him for defacing nature when she found out), the post office on the corner where that worker used to give him caramels, it suddenly hit home. This used to be home, his original home. He’d been born here. He’d been raised here. And how perfect that he come back here when he was on the brink of making a new home—not one with caramels and tree carvings and water balloons, but Charles reading Austen over his tea, Charles’ slippers tucked under his bed, Charles’ smile in the morning, in the evening, in the middle of the night and always.

As if called by name the man sidled up to him, sleepy but seductive, kissing his jaw and shivering against him.

“Come inside before you freeze off that meager bum,” the man suggested, and tugged him into motion.

Erik laughed but followed his good advice.

"When was the last time you were here?" Charles questioned as they made their way up the stairs inside. There were no elevators in this old building, just a narrow staircase, and Erik switched bags with Charles—the man was dead enough on his feet without trying to drag that heavy thing up two flights of stairs.

"We moved away right before I turned eleven," Erik shrugged, attempting nonchalance as he passed the little door mailboxes where each apartment’s mail got sorted out. He and the girl from 3B used to play house with those, her spider and Wonder Woman figurines occupying her mailbox and his James Bond taking up his. Natalie, that was her name. Or maybe Natasha. She’d been his first kiss, too, technically, although their attempt at a real live French Kiss had entailed simply sticking out and touching their tongues. Very unsanitary, now that he thought about it.

"This is so exciting! I feel like I should be filming your reaction or something," Charles laughed. Erik tried to roll his eyes but they were too busy taking everything in.

It was horribly warm inside his old apartment, a stark change from the frigid temperatures of the street, and Erik felt all his muscles relaxing with the heat and the wonderful scent of his mother's home. It smelt just like his childhood: a sweet citrus smell, the kitchen spices, and the soft sort of fabric smell that followed his mother around from her sewing and knitting, all coupled now with the gentle scent of fresh bread from the new bakery downstairs.

" _Schön_ , Mama," Charles gasped, motioning to the apartment while he dragged the luggage through the tiny walkway.

Edie blushed and brushed off his compliment with a few self-deprecating words Charles wouldn’t know.

After the short entryway was the kitchen on the left and a big closet on the right. Further inside was the living room, hemmed in on the left by a small dining room table and chairs. The two doors on the right lead to the bedrooms, Erik knew, and on the left was the bathroom and his mother's all-purpose room for her computer, her sewing, and her knitting.

" _You boys put your luggage in my room. Irena will keep her room and I'll take the couch,"_ Edie said, motioning them to Edie's room.

Erik stopped in his tracks.

" _Nein, Mama._ _Daraus wird nichts." Not happening._

"What's going on?" Charles questioned, stopped up behind him in the foyer, panting sleepily from the climb.

"We're about to have a Big, German Argument," Erik explained. And before he even finished his sentence, his mother was claiming that it was her house and she was the one in charge of sleeping arrangements and Erik shouted back that he was the guest and the guest got to sleep where he wanted to sleep and Erik liked the couch, he really did, he’d been dreaming of sleeping on the couch. Edie growled back that he might be grown but she was still his mother and she said he was taking her room. He said that if this was an example of her decision making abilities he was going to have to put her in a home because she was going out of her mind.

Once all the yelling was over, Erik emerged panting from the rubble to discover that he had essentially won (thanks to a very serious threat to get a hotel room): his mother and Irena would share her queen bed, Charles would take his mother’s smaller bed, and Erik would have the couch. He had tried to shove the couch to Irena, but hadn't been so set on it that he couldn't live with the current situation.

"You're taller--you should have the bed," Charles argued as he put their bags in the smaller room on the right.

"Don't you get in on this too," Erik growled. He didn’t normally trust his odds arguing with Charles but the man was blinking owlishly, so right now he thought he could take him. "And the couch is plenty big enough for me."

Sure enough, Charles was too exhausted to fight him further and, that taken care of, Edie showed them around the apartment, which really amounted to showing off all the photos she had hanging everywhere. She and Charles had similar views on architecture in that walls were not in fact for holding up the ceiling but were in fact only around to shower with shrines to your family. Erik glanced around at the copious photos himself and let his mother lead Charles through them one by one, offering up translations when they were necessary.

His parents’ wedding was obvious enough, Charles could figure that out, but he put his two cents in explaining the naked toddler photo of himself knocking on the neighbor's door. "She says that this was a fluke occurrence with extenuating circumstances and it hardly ever happened and she's surprised they managed to get it on film at all since it was so fleeting a moment," he explained on top of his mother's insistent German of " _He refused to put on clothes! I couldn't leave him alone for a second or it was naked time all over again. And then, once he could work door handles, he'd just run all over the apartment building naked as a jaybird! I've never seen anything like it!"_

Most of the photos on the walls he recognized from having had them around all his life: baby pictures of him, of his sister who had died young--long before he was born--pictures of his father, of his mother, his grandparents, and any amalgamation of the lot of them. But there were some he was not exactly expecting.

" _Where did you get this?"_ he questioned, pointing to a picture of him and Charles from Moira's son's birthday party. It was a pristine action shot thanks to Angel: Charles had just gotten Erik straight in the side of the head with a water balloon, soaking his hair even as Erik tried to block the hit and turn away. He was still laughing though, and Charles was absolutely tearful with mirth, although it could have been water: Erik had been soaking Charles to the bone for most of the day, eschewing the water balloons in favor of the garden hose.

" _You emailed it to me,"_ Edie came over to explain. Charles followed in a moment. _"Michael from upstairs showed me how to print it on photo-paper. It turned out nice, right?"_

It looked very nice, and Erik scoped out for more in the same vein. They were easy to find when he was looking for them: he just had to be on the lookout for those shining blue eyes.

There was the one Raven had taken of them as they walked home from the Food Fair, holding hands and drinking the melted remains of their snow cones. Here was the photo from Charles' birthday, the two of them feeding each other cake sarcastically. In another they sat with their arms around each other’s shoulders at a picnic, Charles kissing his cheek. Another was the childhood picture from Charles' office that the younger man had given him for Hanukkah last year, and that he had dutifully shared with his mother.

"Hey, that's me," Charles pointed out in shock, staring at his sixteen-year-old self grinning on the beach. Erik wondered why he was just now figuring this out: it had been him four pictures ago with Erik wrapped around his torso, too, but he hadn't balked at that. But then he understood: all the other pictures could be pictures of Edie's son that his boyfriend just happened to be in. This was all Charles, all the way.

" _Du bist Familie,"_ Edie explained, patting his arm affectionately. Charles didn't need much German skills to work that out and blinked in shock at her before glancing at Erik for clarification.

"Did she...what did she..." he choked out.

Erik smiled a little condescendingly. "You're a smart kid, you know what she said."

"That's," Charles sighed, looking at Edie blankly. " _Das ist süß, danke_."

Edie grinned and reached up to pet Charles' cheek affectionately. Erik was surprised to see the younger man pull away.

"I should call Raven. Tell her I got in okay," the man said, but his voice sounded tight.

" _What did he say?"_ Edie asked in surprise as Charles stalked off to the bedroom to get his phone.

Erik shook his head in confusion and quickly changed the subject to distract his mother from Charles' strange reaction.

" _Wo ist Irena?"_

" _Tante_ Irena," Edie corrected, giving a last lingering glance at the bedroom door before taking Erik into the kitchen to stuff him full of food. " _She's at the doctor's. For her migraine."_

 _For her hypochondria,_ Erik wanted to correct. So that’s the excuse the woman had used to avoid chaperoning his mother on the train. Well as soon as she got back he was going to give her a real migraine, or at least a good tongue-lashing. Well, assuming he was done caring for Charles by then. The man hadn’t slept in probably a good 24 hours. If he didn’t pass out soon he wasn’t human and Erik was officially in love with an android or an alien or something.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Charles struggles to stay awake, Erik struggles to thwart him.

Erik wasn’t sure how long Charles would be able to keep his eyes open, especially considering the fact that the man was nearly falling asleep even on the walking tour of the apartment, yawning even as he fawned over the room that had once been Erik’s, which was now his mother’s sewing room. The man still had Erik point out where his old bed had been, where he’d kept his stuffed mouse, the book case that held his copy of _Pu der Bar,_ but didn’t look as if her were taking copious notes, a sure sign that he functioning on a subpar level.

“Oh come on. Just go lie down,” he begged. “We’ll wake you for dinner, promise.” But Charles knew better than to believe him.

“No,” the man insisted, immediately trying to look more awake by way of copious blinking and rubbing of eyes. “I don’t want to be rude.”

“It’s going to seem a lot ruder when you drown in your soup,” Erik retorted.

Charles just smiled and sidled up to him, snuggling into his side. “Be serious now: you wouldn’t let anything happen to me.”

And that was pretty damn hard to argue with, so he gave up. Better to fight a battle he could win.

“Mama,” he said in his best cajoling voice. “ _Maybe just a light dinner. Something **quick**.”_

_“You don’t want matzoh? I was going to make matzoh! It’s your favorite…”_

_“Tomorrow. Charles is going to pass out any second, and he’s too stubborn to miss dinner. Please, something quick so he can get to bed.”_

“Don’t talk about me,” said Charles, immediately on high alert. “What’d you say about me?”

 _“_ Nothing!” Erik squeaked, embarrassed he could be dumb enough to make such a rookie mistake. “I was just telling her what you like for dinner.”

 _“Maybe just sandwiches?”_ Edie considered, rubbing her chin thoughtfully.

“Erik, what did you tell her?” Charles’ voice was getting sharper.

“I just told you!” It was obviously going to take something more than a quick meal to lull the man to sleep--he was too pent up and looking for traps for it to be as simple as that. If it were feasible, he’d suggest a good roll in the hay—that could always be counted upon to exhaust Charles to sleep--but he didn’t think his mother would fail to notice that little aside. “ _Something hot. He’ll be asleep in no time with something hot. It’s our only hope.”_

His mother bit her thumb miserably. “ _If only I’d started that matzoh this morning!_ _It’d be perfect!”_

_“Don’t feel bad, Mama.”_

_“No, I should have known. It’s best if it stews all day.”_

_“Hey, we’ve got lots of time.”_

Edie smiled then, no longer fretful. “ _That’s right. We finally have lots of time.”_

Edie couldn’t bear to give Charles canned soup his first meal under her care, so they went with hot sandwiches, getting bread from the bakery downstairs. It was warm indoors, and cozy, and they had wine in order to further lull Charles, and it was all so pleasant and comfortable that Erik was nearly ready for bed as well.

Luckily Irena, seemingly sensing food was happening, showed up minutes into the meal to wake him up again. Unluckily, she woke Charles as well, who until then had been blinking more and more slowly and for longer and longer each time.

Erik had never met his ‘aunt’, and he hadn’t seen many pictures of her because, unlike his mother and boyfriend, he wasn’t one to pour over old family photos. He was surprised and disturbed by how much this woman looked like his father: they had the same wide brows, the overlarge ears he himself had inherited, the furrow at the brow, the tall lanky body. But then she opened her mouth, thankfully shattering any resemblance.

_“You started dinner without me? You knew I was coming back—and after the day I’ve had! That doctor was no help at all: told me sleep on it—sleep on it! When I can hardly even just stand here, my head is hurting me so much. And the people you meet on the streets today—how do I even risk leaving the house for such a useless evaluation? It’s much too cold out there, anyway, and you know I feel it more acutely than everyone else: it’s my bad circulation. I can **never** get warm. Don’t we have any hot coffee on? No dinner, no hot coffee, I should just eat on the streets like a dog.”_

_“No coffee,”_ Erik growled. The last thing he needed was Charles trying to shore himself up with caffeine. The man might die from exhaustion before Erik could manage to wrangle him to bed.

“Coffee? I’d love some,” Charles gasped, sitting up.

“You don’t drink coffee,” Erik reminded bitterly. “Anyway, we’re out. _We’re out of coffee.”_

Irena didn’t seem keen to take his word for it.

“ _Who are you?”_

_“Irena, you remember my son, Erik. I told you he was coming to visit, you remember? And this is his boyfriend, Charles.”_

“Nice to meet you,” Charles waved, and then apparently remembered what country he was in. “Uns auf Sie. _”_

 _“_ Edie _!”_ the woman sighed, throwing her things down haphazardly by the couch, showing no signs of one day putting them away. “ _Now’s not a good time. You know I have a very fragile immune system, especially in the winters—who knows what strange foreign diseases they’ve come with?”_

 _“This isn’t even your house!”_ Erik snarled. Charles had no clue what was going on, but he patted Erik’s arm calmingly anyway, making soft shushing noises.

“ _And where are they supposed to sleep? You know I need the couch for when I feel well enough to leave my room.”_

 _“Charles will take my room, and you and I will share your room, and Erik will take the couch. It’ll still be free during the day,”_ Edie assured.

_“My room? My bed’s barely big enough for me—my bad back requires me to sleep in very specialized positions. There won’t be nearly enough room left for you.”_

_“We’ll make do,”_ Edie insisted, voice rather tight now.

“ _Well I think a hotel would be a better fit,”_ Irena stated flatly, crossing her arms.

That was pushing even Edie to the edge. “ _You do what you want, Irena. Maybe you **would** be more comfortable in a hotel.”_

The gangly woman stood in shock, staring blankly at Erik’s smug grin. Her pride came back to her first.

Drawing herself to full height, she pulled the edges of her heavy cardigan more firmly around her skeletal body.

“ _I’m not feeling well. I’ll be in my room--while it’s still mine. Don’t bother making me a plate, I couldn’t possibly keep anything down, not a bite.”_

Edie seemed to know better than to take her at face value.

“ _I’ll bring you some sandwiches when you’ve settled in.”_

_“Maybe some juice as well, for my low blood sugar. And some meatballs, from last night. Bread and butter, to settle my stomach.”_

_“Of course, Irena. Feel better.”_

_“Not likely,”_ the woman grumbled, wanting the last word before she slunk to her lair.

 _“_ Well, she was pleasant,” Charles smiled at the closed door.

“Get me a pail of water,” Erik growled. “I’m going to see if she melts.”

 

* * *

 

“ _Look at you!”_ Edie beamed. “ _So domestic!”_ She patted his waist as he put the last dish on the drying rack. Maybe he couldn’t be trusted to cut bread, but he could wash dishes like nobody’s business these days.

“Wo ist Charles _?”_ he questioned, fingers crossed. He had officially done everything he could. Quick hearty dinner, wine, hot tea. If Charles was still awake at this point it was time to suck it up and muscle through till ten, Charles’ normal bed time. Perhaps he was in luck though: his mother smiled agreeably, handing him a kitchen towel to dry off.

“ _Come see,”_ she chuckled. So he did.

“Oh my god,” he laughed, pulling out his phone to snap a pic.

Charles was seated on the couch, head fallen back against the cushions, half-full cup of tea still gripped loosely in his lap. Erik had _known_ a good cup of hot tea would do the trick.

“ _Put him to bed,_ ” his mother balked. “ _Don’t let him sleep like that—he’s going to get a crick in his neck.”_

 _“Okay, hang on,”_ Erik nodded. He wouldn’t be able to text the picture out, that would have to wait till he was back in America, but he could at least email it to someone, keep it safe in case Charles found his phone and decided to “free up some space”.

“ _Kleiner, you’re awful!”_ Edie chastised. “ _I’m going to wake him up.”_

 _“_ No, no, no!” said Erik. “ _I’ll do it. I’m doing it.”_

So, putting away his phone, Erik eased the teacup out of Charles’ limp grasp, setting it on the tea tray on the coffee table.

He wasn’t sure what to do beyond that, though. He didn’t think Charles had ever fallen asleep at seven o’clock before. He did technically have some experience getting Charles into bed, that was true, but he struggled to pinpoint an element of his repertoire that could be called PG. His mother was still looking on avidly.  

“ _Mama, come on, don’t you have something to clean?_ ”

“ _Nope,”_ Edie said happily, sitting down at her reading chair, watching like this was some adorable Youtube video featuring kittens or laughing babies.

Rolling his eyes and trying not to feel self-conscious, Erik sat down beside Charles, more heavily and closer than was necessary. He should have known better. Charles was _never_ that easy to wake, even, apparently, at this ridiculous time of day.

Erik tried to think, he really did. His brain just kept circling back to his normal repetoire. Normally he’d just start kissing Charles’ throat and work his way down and by time he got to his belt Charles would be more than awake enough to drag them both into bed.  True that had a habit of...well... _exciting_ Charles a bit past the reach of the Sandman, but a quick roll in the hay and Charles was soon out like a light. Putting his mind down that track was useless though--it wasn’t exactly a scheme he could use now, with his mother part of the avid audience. Erik had never had to tailor his antics to parental supervision: both of Charles’ parents were long gone and Erik’s only surviving relative was thousands of miles away under normal circumstances. He wracked his brain anew.

Clearing his throat loudly (no effect), he began to tease his fingers back through Charles’ hair (mild shift, nothing to get one’s hopes up about), and growled to the man gently, “Come on, babe, wake up, this is really awkward...” Push came to shove, he decided, he’d just pick the man up and throw him into bed.

But luckily Charles seemed to be coming to, groaning softly and turning into Erik’s touch, inching closer, shifting one sleepy limb at a time till he was nearly in Erik’s lap.

“No, no, no, none of that, now,” Erik squeaked, glancing at his mother who just beamed back at him even as he struggled for distance. Charles wasn’t having any of that, though. When he was half-awake he apparently took on all the characteristics of an octopus, or quicksand. The more Erik struggled, the more ingrained Charles seemed to become.

So, trying a new tactic, he nuzzled closer, his lips just brushing Charles’ ear, and hissed, “Quick, get dressed, I hear someone coming!”

“Whu!” Charles gasped, jerking in his grip and nearly kicking over the tea tray. He smacked Erik when he realized what the man had done.

“Jerk,” he grumbled, but Erik was forgiven quickly as Charles tried to go immediately back to sleep by climbing into Erik’s lap and wrapping his arms around his waist, cuddling in for the long haul.

“Come on, _Schlafmütze,_ I’m serious. You _do_ need to get up.”

“Mmmm, what time is it?” Charles groaned, stretching into his grip and holding fast. Erik couldn’t resist responding in kind, squeezing him tightly the way Charles liked. He couldn’t help but notice his mother’s starry-eyed gaze, and blushed hard.

“It’s _seven._ ”

That had been a mistake. He saw that now. His mother’s gaze had distracted him and he’d made a rookie error. When wanting one’s way regarding Charles, _always lie._

“Seven!” Charles gasped, jerking right out of his grasp. The man was so exhausted by now, luckily, that adrenaline didn’t get him very far. When he struggled to get up off the couch he misjudged how much momentum that required and ended up falling back into the cushions. He couldn’t manage a second attempt, he just sat there, head lolling heavily on his shoulders, struggling to corale clear thoughts. “I can’t sleep,” he mumbled, with barely enough drive to form audible words. “Gotta stay up t’least nine. My body will be all off-focus’d.”

Charles couldn’t even keep his eyes open for that speech, lids drooping heavily, (and what did off-focused even mean?) so Erik decided he was allowed to ignore his arguments.

“All right, you had a good run but it’s over now,” Erik sighed, pulling Charles’ arm over his shoulders and standing, dragging the man up with him. And immediately catching him as Charles’ legs buckled out from underneath him. Charles would never forgive him for picking him up like a baby in front of his mother, and Erik was worried the ignominy of it would do what adrenaline couldn’t and wake Charles enough to put up a fight, so instead he put a firm grip around Charles’ waist and dragged him to the bedroom. The brunet didn’t struggle--Erik thought he might already be asleep.

Edie, ever avid for mothering, jumped forward to get the bedroom door first and ran inside to turn down the freshly-made bed.

" _I hope he'll be okay with these cotton sheets...I can wash the flannel ones tomorrow..."_

" _He'll be fine, Mama,"_ Erik assured, easing Charles fully onto the bed, the down comforter framing him like a fluffy embrace waiting to enclose. Seeing as Charles was in no state to deal with it himself, Erik started to undress him, unbuttoning his boyfriend’s dress shirt and then realized his mother was still there. " _Some privacy, if you please? When did you become such a pervert?"_

" _If you didn't bring home such attractive young men I wouldn't have to ogle them,"_ she argued, smacking his shoulder before leaving him to his boyfriendly duties.

He knew Charles would be upset in the morning that he hadn't forced him awake enough to brush his teeth, but that was just too bad. Charles wasn’t even awake enough to undress himself, Lord knew what sort of trouble he could get into with a bristled stick and a vulnerable orifice.

"Whas going on?" Charles murmured, struggling to raise a hand to where Erik was finishing his buttons, pulling his shirt out of its tuck. "'Re we having sex?"

Erik laughed and shook his head. "I know you say it’s impossible to fall asleep during sex, but I’m pretty sure you could disprove your own theory right about now.”

Charles didn’t offer a rebuttal, irrefutable proof that Erik was doing the right thing, sending him to bed--the man must be sleeping already to give up having the last word.

When he was done with the buttons he undid Charles’ cuffs and then began to slowly peel his shirt from him, rolling it away from his skin, leaving him in his thin wife-beater, the barely-there fabric clinging to the planes of him, shifting which each heavy breath. Closing his eyes a moment, he reminded himself that now was very much not the time. Now for the big test: _pants_.

He yanked off Charles’ socks, trying to steel himself, and then there was nothing left but to suck it up and unbutton Charles’ pants. Surprisingly, Charles didn’t seem to notice, not until Erik was slipping them down off his legs and was unable to resist laying a caress down his creamy thighs and calves. The man groaned, arching into his touch. Groping around, Charles’ slack hand grappled onto his shirtfront and dragged him in for a sloppy half-awake kiss. Which quickly turned into a completely asleep kiss, Charles snoring quietly against Erik’s lips.  Go figure.

Erik sighed with half frustration and half amusement and pulled back, looking over Charles’ sleep-slack face and letting amusement take over an extra ten or fifteen percent. Then he untangled Charles' hand from his shirt and pulled the thick down blankets up to Charles' chin.

"Get some rest, _liebling,"_ he whispered, laying a chaste kiss on his boyfriend’s forehead and heading back to the living room to chastise his perverted mother.

Of course he should have known she was too adorable for chastisement.

Closing Charles’ door quietly behind him (although Charles was undoubtedly too far gone for something as inconsequential as a door closing to wake him), Erik saw his mother already waiting with a beaming smile and a big cup of tea for him.

“ _I like him,_ ” she grinned, unable to contain it for even the second it took to settle themselves on the couch.

“ _Of course you like him, he’s wonderful,_ ” Erik shrugged, but he was secretly pleased, relieved. He didn’t have a good track record when it came to introducing lovers to his family. The only other serious partner his mother had ever met was Magda and...well...that had not ended well.

“ _I knew he would be wonderful, from what you say about him all the time, but the way you are around him,”_ here his mother took a little breath and wiped a motherly little tear from her eye. “ _Your father and I always wanted that...hoped for that, for you.”_

Smiling, trying not to choke up even the tiniest bit, Erik patted his mother’s small shoulder beside him and then put his arm around her shoulders.

“ _Wait till you see him tomorrow. He was so ground down after that flight--he’ll be even better tomorrow._ ”

But his mother shook her head, leaning against his weight. “ _No, he’s perfect already. Because he loves you, and you love him. I always knew you’d find it one day--not that you certainly didn’t take your time about it._ ”

“ _You knew more than I did, then,”_ he sighed. Glancing at his boyfriend’s closed door he said, “ _Charles was...a surprise._ ” That was the tritest word for it. Charles was magical, an honest to god miracle. Charles was more than he could have ever imagined or hoped for. He could barely imagine what his life had been like before Charles, before someone loved him the perfect, honest way Charles loved him, was a part of him, was a completion of himself.

How could he risk going back to that, back to his Life Before, if you could call that a life? And yet how could he be happy with what he had now when his mind had been opened to what he could have if it all worked out? He wasn’t what anyone could call an optimist, but he could be what some would call greedy. He wanted everything, everything other couples had. He wanted living together and not sharing, he wanted going to bed and waking up, and all the time. He wanted everything.

But did he want everything or nothing?

His heart felt cold.

“ _The sooner you ask him,”_ his mother said, patting his knee. “ _The sooner you can stop worrying._ ”

But it didn’t feel like that. _The sooner I ask him, the sooner he can say no,_ he thought miserable. _He’s not going to pick me over her. He’s not ever going to leave Raven. He’ll be sweet about it, he’ll laugh and say I’m being silly and that of course we can all just live in a commune together and Raven and I can trade him on alternate weekends, and he won’t understand what he’s saying, that he’s saying yes to the impossible and saying no to us._

“ _Come on,”_ his mother sighed. “ _You’ve had a long day. Sleep is the best medicine. It’ll all be better in the morning.”_

Erik followed her advice. Maybe she was right. Maybe Raven would step in front of a bus overnight, after all.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> German approximations that weren't explained in text:  
> Schlafmütze = Sleepyhead


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Charles sleeps in and pays for it, Erik fights off suitors and mostly succeeds.

He did feel better in the morning, but that could be because his mother woke him up with her famous orange hot chocolate and lots of kisses. He’d somehow forgotten, over the years, that this was how she used to get him up for school, putting him in an affectionate (yet surprisingly strong) headlock and kissing him until he could fight his way free. He never fought very hard.

“ _Good morning to you, too,_ ” he groaned once free, unable to hide his smile as he scrubbed his face awake.

“ _Poor sleepy boy, come on, get up. The girls are going to  be here soon.”_

 _“Girls?”_ he questioned, rubbing his eyes as his mother brushed his hair back. “ _What girls?”_

_“From synagogue of course! They can’t wait to see you again--they haven’t seen you since you were just my sweet little boy. They’re all aflutter over Charles, too, of course. Very excited!”_

_“Mama,”_ he groaned miserably, falling back against his pillow. “ _You’ve got to be kidding me. It’s our first day. You can’t invite all your synagogue friends over and scare Charles off on the first day. You have to ease people into psychopaths like that.”_

The Crones were frightening enough when he was a child, a horde of babbling cheek-pinchers with itchy wool jackets and damp peppermints. He literally could not imagine what they were like in old age, though he couldn’t imagine they had improved at all. “ _We’re going sightseeing. Charles has about a million things on his list. There’s no time. Sorry.”_

 _“Don’t be silly,”_ his mother said. “ _Come on, you can help me make canapes.”_

 _“I can’t make canapes,”_ Erik balked. He could barely work a can opener without a tetanus shot becoming necessary. She’d had enough kitchen emergencies through his childhood to know that.

“ _Well you can run and get me some rye bread from Uwe downstairs. And get us some croissants for breakfast. I want everything set up perfectly for when Charles wakes up. Hurry, mein Langweiler!”_

“Slowpoke my ass,” he muttered, being sure it was quiet enough so she couldn’t possibly hear. She needn’t have been concerned with time though: when he got back with wares, even after a very long conversation with the baker who seemed a little too interested in how Edie was doing and protesting that there was no way Edie was old enough to have a son his age, he must be Edie’s brother, _still_ Erik was back before Charles was so much as stirring.

Even once mini sandwiches were made and refrigerated, croissants were displayed with assortments of jam and trappings, and tea was brewed, even once it has all been attacked by Irena and then restaged by his mother, _still_ Charles hadn’t made a peep.

“ _It might be time to wake him up,”_ Edie said nervously, glancing at the cuckoo clock. It was slowly approaching ten. Charles _never_ slept till ten. Erik couldn’t remember Charles _ever once_ sleeping till ten, and the man _loved_ sleeping. Even with his extravagant love of sleep he never made it till ten, least of all as a guest. Charles wasn’t much one for housework, but his intense sense of cordiality made him forget that, and he was normally up at the crack of dawn to sweep floors and polish silverware unless Erik handcuffed him to the bed (which, really, was not such a hardship).

“ _What time are the hens coming over?”_ he asked.

_“My **friends** are coming over at eleven. That’s not much time...”_

Checking the clock again, he realized that time would not start running backwards to save him from his terrible boyfriendly duties.

 _“Okay, okay,”_ he grumbled, grudgingly convinced. He _hated_ waking Charles. Even for work, it felt cruel, merciless. Charles loved sleeping so much. And he looked so cute doing it. And sleeping normally meant cuddling, and although he had come to cuddling late in his life, Erik had discovered a passion for it that made interruptions especially distasteful. That he had to do this to please his mother felt particularly tragic. He wished he smoked so he could go out for cigarettes and not come back for a couple hours, at least until Charles had woken up all on his own.

For some reason he didn’t think he could get away with that.

So with a miserable sigh, he forced himself to open Charles’ door. The blackout blinds were down, the room pitch black. No wonder Charles hadn’t realized what time it was. He steeled his heart and flipped on the light, flooding the place with faintly buzzing fluorescent. With a pained groan Charles slipped deeper under the covers, until just a miserable tuft of brown hair poked out from the down comforter.  

Gritting his teeth, Erik sat on the edge of the bed and eased the blankets down to Charles' shoulder, heart breaking as Charles turned and whined and groaned away from the light, looking like a drugged mole dragged out to day.

"What'r you doing? Why?" he complained, turning to his pillow as if it were the only thing he could count on these days to not betray him.

Erik pet his hair apologetically and leaned down to breathe in the sleepy scent of the man, nuzzling him with as much penance as the action could contain.

"Sorry, _Helligkeit_ , time to greet the day. Come eat breakfast, that’ll make you feel better: fresh croissants and hot tea, your favorite."

“God, what time do you German’s wake up at?” Charles groaned. “It’s too early for breakfast.”

“ _Early_? I’m pretty sure even McDonalds has stopped serving breakfast by now.”

Charles jerked immediately and fully awake beneath him.

" _What time is it?_ " he hissed.

Erik chuckled and scooted away because the man was going to flip when he heard. "It's ten."

Charles made a choked noise and lunged out of the bed but got caught by his legs, toppling to the floor where he caught himself on his forearms with a crash, his feet still tangled up in the sheets. Erik yelped and jumped forward, pulling the man back onto the bed by his arms, but Charles didn't stay still long enough to drop him there, kicking his legs free while Erik was still pulling him up and pushing out of the bed using Erik as leverage, thrashing himself into a frantic stand.

"Why am I naked?" he gasped, lunging around randomly trying to remember where he'd put his luggage.

"You're not naked," Erik laughed, collapsing back on the bed, snuggling into Charles’ abandoned warmth as he watched his boyfriend struggle to locate clothes, enjoying the sight of his body in action, muscles rippling under his skin, dark boxer-briefs clinging in all the right places. Charles had managed to find the luggage but attacked the empty one by mistake.

“Where’re my bloody clothes?”

" _Is everything okay? I heard noises,"_ Edie claimed, throwing open the door, and getting an immediate and full view of his half-naked boyfriend.

 

* * *

 

Edie dealt with her overwhelming embarrassment by cleaning everything in sight. Charles, trying a different tactic, buried his burning face in Erik’s throat and lamented, continuously.

“Ogodogodogod.”

“Hey, it wasn’t that bad. It’s not as if you were _actually_ naked,” Erik said for the 50th time, patting his back. Charles didn’t listen any more than he had the first time, ignoring his breakfast and burying himself even deeper.  

“I wasn’t wearing any trousers! That’s a _bit_ more skin than I was hoping to show off on my second day of knowing her!”

Erik wasn’t sure how many different ways they could find to say the exact same two sentiments over and over, and so he stopped trying.

“I didn’t have any complaints,” Erik hummed close into his ear, sliding his fingertips under Charles’ sweater.

“Mmmm,” the man groaned back, kicked off his worn track. Tilting his head back, he took Erik’s mouth aggressively. It wasn’t a light kiss, but something distracting and overwhelmingly ardent. Not the type of thing he could get away with in his mother’s living room.

“Okay, okay,” he squeaked, pulling away.

“What?” Charles asked, still nibbling his lips. Erik put a hand up over the man’s mouth and pushed him back as his mother re-entered the room.

“ _All full? You need to eat more!_ ” she exclaimed, motioning to Charles’ breakfast he had been too embarrassed to eat. Despite her chipper tones, her face was still rosy, and she was blinking too much. Erik felt it would be a long time before either one of them could look each other in the eye without blushing.

Charles looked between Edie and Erik, his mouth still firmly stoppered, and narrowed his eyes. He pushed Erik’s hand off of him more violently than necessary.

“ _What’s wrong?”_ Edie asked, because it was that obvious.

“He’s just still embarrassed,” Erik flat-out lied. What was he supposed to say? _He just started to suspect that we will not be having any sex while I’m visiting my elderly mother and is shocked into being ever so slightly mean._

“ _Oh Spatzi!”_ she exclaimed, patting Charles’ knee, which he fidgeted out from under her hand. “ _You don’t need to be embarrassed!”_

Regardless of that piece of advice, she was still too embarrassed to keep still for longer than five seconds, escaping by taking Charles’ breakfast try to the kitchen, then setting out the finger foods, then running off to “finish getting herself ready” although Erik was fairly sure she was already completely done.

“Something you want to tell me?” Charles growled when she was gone, but Erik didn’t, especially as he heard the outside door bang shut downstairs.

“Ummm,” he hemmed, and when he heard footsteps on the stairs he jumped up and dove into the kitchen shouting something about the last batch of dishes. He was just in time, the knock at the door barely resounding over a cackle of voices on the other side shouting _No, me first. How come you get to knock? So cute. Can’t wait. All grown up. Peppermint just for him._

He cringed. Better to hide in the kitchen and let them get the first effusions of their joy out of their system. Safer that way.

He heard his mother let them in, the squealing hellos, the stampede for the living room, the shrieks of joy as Charles was undoubtedly eaten alive. He wished he could rescue the man, but that was of course out of the question. The best thing to do would be to sneak out now while he had the chance and head to the nearest bar, wait it out, tell his woeful story of true love eaten alive by a geriatric herd of wild hyenas and wait for the replacement pity boyfriends to start rolling in.

“Hey,” his mother growled, throwing open the kitchen door, making him yelp. “ _Come on, stop hiding.”_

 _“Still throwing open doors blindly?”_ he growled back. “ _Haven’t you learned your lesson?”_

 _“Get out there right now, young man,”_ his mother replied in _The Voice_ and he had to obey, praying as he did for the first time in a long time.

_Please don’t let them permanently injure my cheeks._

Irena was in the bedroom lying down, which was a blessing because Edie's friends took over every bit of furniture available. They squeezed Charles in four across on the three-person couch, and the others were grudgingly seated on the chairs Edie had laid out, complaining that the couch-girls were hogging all the cuteness.

They were all talking at once, the ones on the couch telling Charles how adorable he was and the ones off it telling the same thing to Edie, who beamed with downright pride.

" _He's so handsome! These American types are always so like movie stars_!"

" _He should be on television, he really should! Oh, Edie, this is a **good** son-in-law_."

One skinny woman sitting nearly in Charles' lap was stroking his hair back and marveling at its sweet curl (diminished since his hair cut), saying to him, " _You have to meet my grand-daughter Cissy—you two would make a beautiful couple. Oh my goodness!_ "

Erik growled and put an end to that right away. " _You just go ahead and leave Cissy at home—he's taken._ "

That unfortunately brought everyone's attention down on him and the women he knew from childhood jumped up to tell him how much he'd grown and the women he hadn't known jumped up to tell him how much more handsome he looked in real life than in his pictures.

When they had gotten their fill they shoved him down onto the couch next to Charles and pushed the two of them together so they could gauge how much of an attractive couple they made. Apparently it was pretty fair because they all starting clucking and clapping, and then one of them wailed, " _It's such a pity there won't be any babies_!" and they all took up the lamentation: " _A pity! Yes, an absolute pity_!"

"What are they saying?" Charles questioned through his clenched smile.

"They're saying that we're the sexiest goddamn couple they've ever seen in their lives and I need to find a way to impregnate you as soon as possible," Erik replied without breaking his own fake for-company grin.

Charles stared at him for a shocked second and then slapped him hard on the leg. "You jerk—I believed you!"

"My translation wasn't really far off!" Erik defended, holding the man's hand back from further attack. The women cooed in unison at their adorable fighting and Erik had to struggle not to roll his eyes. This was not cute. This was assault.

" _He's feisty_ ," one of the women said. Erik didn't know who she was, but he agreed with her whole-heartedly. “ _That’s good._ ” He stopped agreeing with her whole-heartedly.

" _My Agathe will love him_ ," another woman said. Erik didn't remember her name, but recognized from childhood as having one pissant son about his age and one mean-mouthed daughter a couple of years older than him. No fucking way.

" _The lot of you, leave your daughters where they are: he's mine_ ," Erik growled again, hoping it would sink in this time when he gripped Charles demonstratively around the shoulders, still clutching the man’s wrist in case he wasn’t done beating him. He could tell by their cheerful gazes that it had _not_ sunk in, so he continued. " _Charles is in no way interested in your daughters unless they're actually your sons and even then—he has me. He doesn't need your hand-outs_."

" _Erik—behave_ ," his mother laughed. " _You too, girls. You're not taking my son-in-law from me."_

" _We'll have your son, then_ ," Frau Weiβ cackled, reaching over to pinch Erik's cheek. He pulled away, sliding behind Charles' back for protection.

"Keep these clawed crabs away from me," he demanded of his boyfriend.

"If you'll excuse me I think now's a good time to call Raven," Charles sing-songed, standing up.

"You just called her yesterday!" Erik complained, seeing the women scrunch in closer to him like a pack of ravenous wolves.

"She didn't answer. I'm going to try again." Erik got the feeling Charles would not have to call her just exactly right now, right when Erik needed him, if Erik hadn’t turned prude on the couch earlier. But he had only inconclusive evidence, nothing he could bring to court.

Edie didn't know why Charles was leaving but she recognized that he was doing so. Although she didn't try to stop him, she did force him to pause while she pressed some canapes into his hand, explaining with a demonstrative prod to his ribs that he needed to eat more.

Erik wasn't quite distracted by the synagogue wolves enough to miss the way Charles' jaw tightened, and he was immensely confused by the fact that Charles hid the treats in the plant-holder on the way to his room rather than eat them. He _was_ too distracted though to give it the clinical thought it deserved, as Frau Schwartz started showing him pictures of her daughter Lola and daring Erik to have the audacity to say that she and Charles wouldn't have beautiful babies.

He did dare, in spades, and when he'd dared himself into exhaustion she dared him to say that _he_ and Lola wouldn't have beautiful babies and by then he was too tired to argue further.

By time Charles came back Erik already had a date set for Lola and Frau Englewild was petitioning for the same prize for her daughter as well.

“Rescue me. They’re rabid-- not even gay men are safe from their matrimonial schemes,” he complained to his boyfriend. Charles’ smile broke from his somber, thoughtful caste as he exited the bedroom. Erik guessed he hadn’t been able to get through to his sister yet again. He was going to murder that girl. Not at the moment though, as Charles dropped directly into Erik’s lap, arm around his shoulders.

“ _Mein, frauleines_ ,” the man smiled with his adorable accent, ruffling Erik’s hair. “ _Mein Schatz_.”

Erik bit down on his overwhelming lust and blushed, wrapping his arms tightly around Charles’ waist, burying his face between the man’s shoulders. Peeking around it he could see his mother wiping tears from her eyes and buried himself more fully so as not to see it again; if he saw her crying he would start crying, emotional sap that he was when it came to Charles, when it came to his mother. He warmed his face on Charles’ sweater until he was sure the danger was gone.

“Hey,” he whispered, close in the man’s ear so he could be heard over the crowd of women gushing over Charles’ accent. “I love you.”

Charles turned into him, rubbing his cheekbone over Erik’s brow.

“ _Ich liebe dich auch_ , darling.”

God, Charles had to stop doing that--he _knew_ what speaking German did to Erik. The man was making it very difficult to abide by Erik’s own hard-fraught decision not to fuck his boyfriend in his mother’s house. At this rate a motel was going to be end up being very necessary _very_ soon.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this has taken me so long!! Turns out writing two stories at once is rough. Ron Swanson was right about whole-assing one thing. Hope you guys don't hate me too much! Love ya!

When the ladies finally left (after another long round of cheek-pinching and womb-pimping), Erik and Charles helped to clean up their mess, racing Edie for the most strenuous tasks and mostly beating her out. Erik did dishes again and Charles vacuumed up the crumbs from the sandwiches (and, Erik fully suspected, destroyed all evidence of his own hidden snack). Edie had to sigh acceptance at the simple task of packing the leftovers, and then promptly unpacking them when Irena fluttered out of her room like a wounded pelican and decided she wanted some. Once the woman was fed she claimed the lights were too bright and stumbled back there to lie down some more (and, if the sounds were any sign, watch some trashy day-time TV).

Chores done, Erik took it as his right to collapse upon the couch in an effusion of exhaustion and self-pity.

“What are you doing?” Charles questioned, still panting from hefting the pure steel vacuum circa 1950, pushing his damp bangs back from his face.

“Dying from overuse,” Erik responded, putting his arm over his eyes.

“You dramatic sod, get up,” the man insisted, tugging his elbow. Erik shook him off, grabbed him so he couldn’t renew his attack and noticed the man had pulled on a heavy sweater.

“Oh god, what is this.”

“You said you’d take me sightseeing!”

“Well, yeah, technically but I meant assuming I was alive. As you can see, I have killed myself in order to rest for two fucking seconds.”

“Erik,” Charles said in his best cajoling voice, climbing up on top of him, and he knew it was all over. “Come on now, you promised. We won’t be long, just a quick tour to get our bearings. A little walk about, some dinner, some lovely wine, see where the evening takes us. You can sleep any old time, but we can only sightsee _now_.”

“We could go tomorrow,” Erik said petulantly, but he already knew he’d lost, even as he tried to avoid looking directly in those hypnotizingly big blue eyes.

“Now don’t be silly--we’re only here another ten days: we’ll never get through it all if we skip a whole day!”

Erik had lived here for ten years and he couldn’t imagine what there was to do that could fill ten whole days, but he knew that was only because he lacked Charles’ imagination and interest in minutia.

“Come on, darling, sweetheart, most wonderful boyfriend, light of my life,” the man pleaded, kissing him all over his face at each pause.

Erik caught him by his woolen collar and kissed him soundly, whispering “This is _not_ making me want to get up, _Mausi.”_

Charles beamed back at him and clambered up, calling out “I’ll get the travel books and another sweater for you! Looks like it might snow!”

Groaning against his terrible fate, Erik somehow forced himself up off the couch so he could put on another layer and break the news to his mother.

" _Sorry, Mama,"_ he shrugged, pulling on his coat and helping Charles wrap himself in the biggest knit scarf Edie had on hand. “ _Charles is itching to see the town.”_

" _Don't apologize—just go cheer him up!"_

Erik was surprised by the intimation. Charles never needed cheering up--he was the most naturally cheerful man on earth. He was so ubiquitously cheerful that Emma routinely feared for his sanity and intelligence. But there wasn’t time enough to worry about that now, or question his mother further, as Charles dragged him raring into the freeze and snow. There was only shivering and trying to keep up with Charles’ overwhelming excitement.

The first tourist spot was a flop: the playground Erik had grown up going to was now a parking lot for a bank. So they walked down to the Neckar and followed the river along its scenic sprawl, arm in arm, stopping in the park that Erik used to attack ducks at.

“Attack ducks,” Charles repeated, blinking. “Not feed ducks. Attack ducks.”

“I’m sorry. I should have told you earlier--I just didn’t want you to think less of me. Do you think you can ever come to love such an established duck-hater as I?”

“But they’re so cute!” Charles attested.

“They waddle like assholes. They’re asking for it. Also, they make annoying noises.”

Charles laughed outright, throwing his head back with it, his throat visible over the multiple folds of his thick scarf. He was such a beautiful man, and so beautiful to be around. Erik was struck with the urge to ask him, right then and there, and was then struck with the counteractive and equally powerful urge to _never_ ask him, to never risk losing him on his arm like this by attempting too much.

"It's so beautiful here," Charles sighed finally, leaning his head on Erik's shoulder on the down stroke of their tandem steps. "Don't you miss it?"

"I've lived in very beautiful places: here, Killarney, America—our town most of all."

"Really? You think our town is more beautiful than all this?" Charles questioned, sweeping his mittened hand to take in the pale blue hill ridges and sparkling Neckar and cheerfully European buildings.

Erik grinned and tucked a piece of flyaway hair back under Charles' cap, eyeing him affectionately as he said, "Infinitely."

It was easy to admit to: Heidelberg was gorgeous, but when stacked up against his memories of their town it simply paled in comparison: Charles as they rowed out onto Blue Lake, Charles in his backyard cutting camellias for his desk, Charles' eyes lit up by the Christmas lights on Candy Cane Lane. Charles eating at his table, drying off in his bathroom, waking up in his bed.

Charles made their city home, and Heidelberg could never be more beautiful than their home.

Home…

Charles was his home. Wherever he was, Erik wanted to be. That concept was so beautiful, so shiningly bright, that it seemed to blaze out all the shadowy fears Erik had been experiencing lately--for the last few months at least. Erik took a deep breath around his fluttering heart. This was the last straw. He had to ask.

And so of course he was promptly interrupted.

“Where are we going?" Charles asked, wrapping his arm around Erik's waist.

Erik considered ignoring the man, just pretending he’d never spoken, stopping in his tracks and grabbing him and just shouting “CHARLES XAVIER WILL YOU LIVE WITH ME?” But suddenly he didn’t dare. All his fears flooded back in the way of overwhelming superstition. It seemed fateful that he’d been interrupted and he worried what would happen to him if he fought fate. Grudgingly, he answered the man.

"Well, we're going to take the Philosophenweg up and around and down to the Alte Brücke. We should make it there by dark, and then we'll get to see the castle lit up."

"Are we going there today? To the castle?"

"I thought we could do that and the Schlossruine another day while it's light out. Is there anything _you_ want to do? Hmm? Anything your travel book tells you I have left out?" he teased. He should have known better than to bring up a topic like that so flippantly.

"As a matter of fact," the man started up defensively.

As Erik turned his boyfriend onto the Bergstraβe and then right to the Philosophenweg onward up to the start of the official hike, he got to hear all about the ‘matter of fact’: the Market Square, Old Town, the student prison, the Church of the Holy Ghost. And the zoo.

"I draw the line at the zoo," Erik growled.

"You were a child here! What could you possibly have against the zoo?"

"I had a bad experience," Erik muttered as they hiked, unwinding his scarf in the dual heat of their climb and his embarrassment. That was his most downplayed way of explaining the time Wolf von Strucker, that inestimable asshole, shoved him over the barrier of the seal exhibit during the class field trip and he'd nearly drowned. Even thinking of it now he wanted to shove some more metal bits into his old water balloons and go after that jerk once again. “Can we just leave it at that?”

Charles was surprisingly incapable of leaving it at that considering how many times he left it at that for his own stories of trauma, so by time they were breaking off the path to wind their way down to the bridge the man had the whole story out of him.

"Oh, darling," the bundled brunet murmured into his bare throat, forcing them to stop as he hugged Erik for all he was worth. "You needn’t worry about that." Pulling back, the man stared into his eyes lovingly. "If you fall in again I'll jump in after you and save you, I promise."

"I didn't _fall in_ —I was _pushed_! The boy was trying to _murder me_!" Erik corrected petulantly, pulling out of Charles' affectionate grip. The other man only laughed and held his hand tightly through their gloves. Erik huffed but allowed it, used to moony handholding by now. "You're not the least bit angry that some kid was trying to kill me? What if he'd succeeded? Who would you date then?"

"Oh, I wouldn't date anyone, of course. I'd die a horny old spinster. _Here lies Charles F. Xavier, buried with his well-used vibrator."_

Erik couldn't help it, he snorted on his own laughter and slapped Charles' arse through their heavy layers. "Sex-freak," he chortled.

"Only for you, love," Charles replied easily, not affected at all these days by the moniker. That kind of resilience steeled Erik's half-hearted resolve.

"Okay, okay, we can go to the zoo. But we're giving that seal exhibit a fucking wide berth."

"Deal, darling," Charles cheered, kissing his cheek warmly.

They walked a good half of the city, up and down roads, popping into shops where Charles could chat up smitten shopkeepers with an adorable mix of fake German and carefully enunciated English. It was _hours_ later when Erik managed to convince the man they should eat actual food rather than survive solely on new friendships and cheery views of the city. It was a strange situation: he didn’t think _he_ had ever had to try to convince _Charles_ to eat something.

They were walking back to the bridge when Erik saw it and stopped in his tracks, moving from general desire to eat to specific desire to eat _here._

“Do you know this place?” Charles questioned, looking up at the sign, lit up against the brisk night sky.

He did indeed. The _Weisser Bock_ might not be the fanciest place in town today, maybe it wasn’t even the fanciest place in town when he was a kid, but for whatever reason he, as a nine year old, had _thought_ it was the fanciest place on earth. Thought it to the degree that he had told his mother he was going to get married there. He had dragged Natalie and an old white sheet there and asked the owner (or random employee, he wasn’t sure) to do the honors. It was of course now necessary to tell Charles the story.

“Well now we _have_ to go in,” the man beamed, yanking him inside.

It was busy but not outrageous, they were seated quickly and were able to not be on their feet and not be bundled beyond comfortable movement. Charles spoke two sentences with the hostess and they were immediately best friends.

Her name was Effie and his accent was so cute. His name was Charles and allow him to be adorable. They were moved to a new table, warmer, quieter--away from screaming kids, away from drafts. They were given a big basket of piping hot buns and chilled butter. Erik couldn’t actually eat any because then he wouldn’t have room for dinner, but he held one of the buns in his bare hands to warm them. The wool gloves he’d packed were warm but not quite warm enough to withstand German winter for four hours without respite. When his circulation had returned to regular programming, though, Effie was still fixing Charles’ hat hair and calling him her _kleine Prinze **and hugging him**. _ He drew the line at hugging; Charles _knew_ that. To drive it home, he kicked Charles under the table. The smaller man flinched but forbore.

"Danke, Effi—eine Sekunde, bitte," Charles requested, motioning to their menus.

"Oh, German very cute—good German," she cheered, running her plump, motherly hands over Charles' hair, preparing for parting just a little too grudgingly. Erik cleared his throat and glared at her but she didn’t even notice, even more galling. "Gluhwein Mama Effi bring, _ja? Ja_. Good Karl. _Ich bin sofort wieder da!_ " Erik hoped she was exaggerating and that she would not actually be right back.

When the woman left Erik didn't bother to open his menu, choosing instead to stare assessingly at Charles across the table, suppressing a smile.

"What?" Charles laughed. Erik shook his head and sighed, smile fighting its way free.

"Even in Germany! Even with a language barrier! Even thousands of miles away from home you manage to woo random strangers!" _Even here you manage to find people to interrupt the important shit I had planned,_ he wanted to tack on bitterly. He didn’t _know_ he would have asked Charles to live with him over dinner, given his track record he would have chickened out, but he didn’t know that he would _not_ have done it if Charles’ friend-making had not usurped their evening.

Charles shrugged off his criticisms snootily. "It'll take a lot more than bringing me to exotic locales to make me change who I am," he sniffed.

The man stopped playing, though, when Erik set aside his roll and reached across the table and took his hands in his. They were cold, but he warmed them in his own.

“I’m glad you came. I’m glad you decided to come with me. I love you very much.”

The man went from surprised to beaming and, leaning across the table, kissed him warmly.

“Anytime, darling. _Ich liebe dich auch._ ”

Effie brought them back some Gluhwein and took their orders (or, really, told them exactly what to order and then went ahead and ordered it for them when they didn’t automatically agree with her, insisting that’s Erik’s first choice of the turkey _schnitzel_ was no good). He ended up with venison goulash and it was amazing, grudgingly as he had to admit it. Charles had the meatballs with mashed potatoes and it was of course the best thing he had ever had in his entire life (“Besides you, dear,” he had grinned across the table with a wink, making Erik blush.).

All in all, not a bad night.

* * *

 

It was late when they got back. After the restaurant, Effie had told them of a great bar around the corner for a nightcap so they’d stopped off there and Charles had made besties with a group of college kids home for the holidays who had invited them to another bar, where Charles added a bartender to his list of bosom buddies and he’d started treating them to shots of Jager--a real German experience--Erik had forbore and luckily Charles had followed his lead. Charles was a little tipsy coming home, groping Erik and giggling into his spine as he tried to get them through the front door, but neither of them were _blindingly_ drunk at least, which was a bit of a miracle when it came to Charles and bar-hopping.

“Shh!” Erik warned, pitching the door open but leaping forward to catch it before it hit the wall. Charles spilled inside, nearly falling, giggling anew. When he slapped a hand over the man’s mouth Charles only groaned against him ardently and yanked their hips together.

“You’re going to wake my mother!” Erik hissed.

“She’s well asleep,” Charles gasped back, pulling his hand off and putting it someplace much more interesting.

On cue, the bedroom door opened and Edie poked her head out. Erik shoved Charles away immediately, not sure what she’d seen. Hopefully her eyes weren’t so good in the dark.

“You’re kidding me!” Charles growled, so quietly he could almost be sure his mother hadn’t heard him.

“Erik?” she asked, pulling her dressing gown closer around her throat. “ _Are you two just getting in? Let me make you some hot milk to warm up.”_

_“Nicht, Mama, we’re fine. Just getting to bed now. Go back to sleep.”_

“ _Are you sure?”_ Only when he insisted another couple times and Irena pitched in whining about being kept up did she wish them a goodnight and go back to bed.

“What I guess you’re just not going to fuck me now?” Charles asked petulantly, a little too loudly.

“For fuck’s sake, Charles!” he hissed back, gripping the man by the shoulder to shut him up, staring at the bedroom door in case it opened again. It remained closed, thankfully.

“Okay, okay,” Charles murmured, cuddling up against him. Erik realized the man was a little drunker than he’d thought. “You don’t have to fuck me this one time, just come to bed.”

“Okay, come on, I’ll put you to bed.”

They brushed their teeth and changed into their pajamas easily enough, although Charles was admittedly unsteady on his feet, but drama rose up again when Erik went to see Charles to his room and set up his own bed on the couch.

“What are you doing?” the man asked as Erik tried to part ways at the door frame.

“Going to bed,” he replied, motioning to the couch.

“Don’t be ridiculous!” Charles piped, tugging on his sweatered arm. “Come on.”

“The bed’s too small,” Erik argued.

“Oh please, it was fine last night!”

“I didn’t sleep with you last night,” said Erik, rolling his eyes.

“You didn’t?” Charles was genuinely surprised, showing exactly how out of it he had been.

“Nope.”

“Shit. Then who the hell did I fuck?” Charles joked. He better damn well be joking, and his teasing smile seemed to verify that he was. He started tugging on Erik again, insistently. “Come on, let’s cuddle.”

“Charles, please,” he said, extricating his sweater from Charles’ grip. “It’s for ten days. Nine, really. I’ll cuddle the hell out of you in Paris, I promise.”

Charles stared up at him with those wide blue eyes and Erik looked away, not risking it.

“You’re really serious, aren’t you?” the man asked in this shocked, hurt little voice.

“We’ve been apart before. We’ve gone ten days without sharing a bed. Hell--when Raven got the flu last winter I wasn’t allowed within ten feet of your place for at least a week, did you hear me complain?”

“Yes! Constantly! You didn’t let up a moment! It was terrible!”

“Okay, well...anyway.”

Charles looked at him assessingly and then smiled, sliding closer and putting his arms around Erik’s slim waist.

“Okay, you win.”

Whenever Charles said ‘you win’ it was always a sign that you had actually lost but he didn’t want to rub your nose in it.

“No sleeping together, got it. Just lie down with me until I get sleepy. Please? Just ten minutes, then separate beds, understood.”

Erik eyed him, trying to see the danger, but Charles’ eyes were so big and blue and genuine.

He decided to play it safe. “Couch then.”

“Deal,” Charles said gladly, apparently unrebuffed, so maybe he really didn’t have any ulterior moments. Maybe he really did just want a quick cuddle before bed. Erik could get behind that. What was there to complain about there?

“Wait, wait, there’s not quite enough room,” Charles complained as they tried to lie down together on the couch. Rather than let that be excuse enough to lure him into Charles’ bed, Erik simply pushed the back cushions off the couch.

“Much better,” Charles sighed. He showed no signs of being disappointed. “But a bit cold. Ah, here we go.” Edie had set out Erik’s bedding, and Charles tugged the comforter free, tucking it around them.

“Charles...” Erik warned, although he wasn’t exactly sure what he was warning about. It had been a little cold.

“Is it strange being back here?” Charles mumbled, cuddling close and warm. “Without your dad, I mean.”

Erik thought about it, wondering if Charles was trying to distract him. Irena’s room had been his parents’. The sewing room had been his. His mother’s bedroom had been his father’s work room, a place for him to practice his carpentry from home. He’d also had a studio down the street where he could do his big projects and store his larger equipment. Erik had loved it as a kid, visiting him there, playing in the sawdust, the smell of fresh-cut wood.

“I miss him, of course. I mean, I always miss him. I do wish he could have met you, though. He’d have loved you.”

“And I love you,” Charles hummed, leaning up with a ready kiss.

“I wish I could have met your dad, too.”

Charles bristled slightly in his arms; they didn’t often discuss Charles’ father, or anything unpleasant in Charles’ past. Brian Xavier had died when Charles was four, and he didn’t remember very much about him at all; pretty unpleasant. “Sorry. At least you didn’t have to meet my mother.”

Erik stroked the man’s hair, considering this.

He had long ago given Erik an extremely sketchy outline of his childhood and the people in it, and had so far spent the rest of their relationship slowly filling in the gaps. Erik had come to accept this aggravating habit of Charles’. It may take years to get enough information to do anything worthwhile with, and there was no rushing him into doling it out. The more personally dour the subject was, the longer it took Charles to get around to feeling the need to discuss it. Or even mention it.

He’d found out early enough that Charles’ parents were both dead--that wasn’t the sort of information you could hide easily. But it was probably a full month before Charles was forced to tell him that his family was filthy rich, or that his father was the famous physicist, Brian Xavier. No matter how Erik had begged for additional information, Charles was frustratingly tight-lipped. It was months again before Charles, cuddled up together in bed, had told him about his father’s death, and the guilt he had for not remembering hardly a single thing about him. That’s how it went: when he did give information it was always randomly, with no prompting, on pure desire to tell. Erik had learned that prying only made it take longer to get it out.

It was in a rush of drunken loquaciousness one night that Erik had heard all about Sharon. That probably hadn’t been more than a month or so ago, about the time they started planning for Charles’ meeting of Erik’s mother. Maybe that’s what had finally triggered it. Erik had been eager but silent: questions, as well as any intimation of too much interest, was another quick way to shut Charles up.

Sharon had remarried soon after Brian’s death, to some guy named Kurt who had worked with Brian and had a rotten son of his own. It was Raven, of course, who had told Erik he was rotten--Charles only said they didn’t get on. Apparently that was polite-speak for the fact that when Charles stood up for himself or Raven, Cain was there with a thrashing, a reign of tyranny that only ended after the boy split Charles’ skull open. That explained the scar on his temple his hair couldn’t quite hide.

It bled profusely, as scalp wounds do, and Charles had gotten a concussion as it turned out so he’d had to go to the hospital. Sharon’s response had been to ask Charles to cover up while he was waiting for the car, as the sight of blood made her sickly. Sounded a lot like Irena. She had not visited him in the hospital. The police had gotten involved (this apparently was not the first incident with Cain, just the worst), and Sharon was incensed that Charles would air their dirty laundry in such a way. She told him if he couldn’t stop causing problems at home then he shouldn’t come home at all. The police agreed and Charles and Raven went to England to stay with their paternal grandfather for the summer, who was by all accounts a stand-up guy.

Charles was doing well in school and didn’t want to leave, was on the track team, the teachers knew him, he had lots of friends, so he decided to go back to America when the school year started, but Sharon still was having nothing to do with him. She had a lawyer tell him he wasn’t welcome at home. He and Raven had gone to live with one of Brian’s colleagues instead, who had a son who’d just gone off to college and had a lot of room. Another decent guy, it seemed, but he was closer with Raven than he was with Charles.

When Charles was 18 his grandfather died. Sharon didn’t attend the funeral. When he was 19, Sharon drank herself into the grave. They hadn’t spoken since he was sixteen. Charles wasn’t invited to the funeral, though he and Raven had gone to the gravesite afterwards to pay their own respects (against Raven’s wishes).

So, in short, not a happy history. Was that it, then? Did that explain Charles’ recent weird behavior with _his_ mother? Was it simply that Charles had had such a terrible relationship with his mother he didn’t know how to act around a _nice_ mother? That didn’t make sense, though--he’d been so great around her at first, the baby pictures, the joyful sign language-based exchanges. What had changed?

“What are you thinking about?” Charles whispered. “Something bad?”

“Of course not,” Erik lied, kissing his forehead.

“What then?”

Erik tried to think of a lie. The best lies, the only lies that really worked with Charles, were ones based in truth.

“I was thinking that I had an extremely happy childhood, and that my parents were very great. And I wish I could take a cut of it and hand it over to you and we could each have had just halfway decent childhoods.”

“I did have a halfway decent childhood!” Charles argued. “I had Raven, and...and...my grandfather.”

“I wish I could give you a halfway _normal_ childhood then.”

Charles was silent a moment, then leaned up and kissed him on his cheek. “You’re incredibly sweet and I adore you.”

            Not a bad end to the night at all.


	8. Chapter 8

Erik woke up very slowly, dragged by degrees to the feeling of Charles in his arms, and fingers threading through his hair. He sighed contentedly and held the man tighter, a little surprised. Charles very rarely managed to wake up before him, much less without waking him. How the hell had the man managed to untangle himself without Erik feeling it? He was only more confused as his body came back online and began to compile a picture of the position he was in. Because that picture included both of Charles' hands fully occupied: one curled between their chests and the other trapped under the small of his back.

Then who the fuck was petting his hair?

He threw his eyes open and was met with his mother staring down at him so closely that he yelped and flailed, toppling both him and his poor confused boyfriend onto the floor with a painful jolt.

Charles started shouting trying to figure out what was going on and Edie jumped in shouting her apologies and Erik had to join in to shout his remonstrance and all in all it was the most traumatic morning Erik had had since Raven drunkenly climbed into bed with them one night.

Erik glared at Edie over breakfast (coffee for him, actual food for everyone else) for scaring the shit out of him, Charles glared at Erik for pitching him violently onto the floor, Edie glared at Erik for being mad at her, and Irena glared at everyone for doing drastic things to her blood-pressure, apparently.

“Why are _you_ glaring at _me_?” Charles groused. “I’m the one that should be glaring. I’m the one who got pitched on the _floor_ at this ungodly hour.”

“I know what you did,” Erik accused.

“What are you talking about?” Charles sounded very innocent, and Erik couldn’t tell if it was authentic or not--it _always_ seemed authentic.

“That raw trick,” he hissed quietly, even though his mother couldn’t understand them anyway. “Falling asleep with me on the couch like that.”

Charles just shrugged. “I was tired.”

Erik stared at him, willing his mental powers to crack the man and force him to spill his manipulative secrets. Charles just hummed quietly as he finished his tea, ignoring him. While Erik could suspect all he wanted that Charles had tricked him into sharing a “bed” in his mother’s house, Charles would not be admitting it any time soon.

When the dishes were cleared, Erik eschewed company and frowned on the tidied couch, watching the news. His anti-social repose didn’t last long.

“Come on,” Charles ordered, coming out of the bedroom fully dressed. “I want to get to the castle before the afternoon rush.”

Staring pitifully, Erik wondered if there was a chance of his arguing his way out of this or if he should give up now for posterity’s sake.

Maybe it was the way they’d woken up, but he was ornery enough to try arguing.

“Am I not allowed to take a lazy day on my vacation? Am I not allowed two relaxing seconds strung together? We can do it another time.”

“You said yesterday we could go to the castle today! Now instead you just want to sit inside all day? We can do that at home any day of the week! I didn’t fly all this way to sit on your mother’s couch.”

“Well I don’t see why not! I mean, we’re meant to be visiting my mother, aren’t we? If not I can guarantee you I would have picked a warmer clime to vacation in.”

Usually, like yesterday, this would be where Charles climbed into his lap and plied him into a more conciliatory frame of mind, which Erik couldn’t say would be completely unsuccessful. He very much felt like being plied right now. But instead, the man blushed deep red and got downright flustered.

“Well if you want to stay here,” Charles growled, hands pinwheeling in demonstrative slices. “Then I can’t stop you—but I’m going! I’m going to that castle, do you hear me?”

Confused concern spurred him on more than convincing argument and he threw his hands up in surrender.

“Okay! We can go to the goddamned castle! Fuck!”

“ _Watch your language!”_ his mother shouted from the sewing room.

Erik didn't respond, just got up and grumpily got dressed, picking out something warm since his boyfriend seemed keen on keeping them out of doors for the entirety of their trip.

 _Why?_ he wondered internally. Sure Charles was a manic tourist, but didn’t this sort of distress at being kept indoors hint at something more?

But when he got out Charles was studying his guidebook avidly, and smiled at him so excitedly, and Erik couldn’t be sure.

 _“We’re going to take the tram up to the castle,”_ he explained to his mom as she was looking up mac and cheese recipes on her very ancient computer.

" _Will you be back for lunch?"_ she balked, her eyes magnified by her reading glasses.

" _I'm not sure. It's up to Charles."_

" _If not, maybe I could come and meet you for lunch somewhere."_

" _Keep your handy on you, I'll call when we’re done,"_ he said, kissing the top of his mother's head. He wasn’t annoyed at her enough over this morning to begrudge her that.

She couldn’t trust them to dress warmly enough, and so joined them in the living room, forcing Erik into a fuzzy hat and Charles into a pair of gloves.

" _Ich liebe euch beide_ _,"_ she waved from the front door.

" _Ich liebe dich auch, Mama,"_ Erik replied. He nudged Charles so the man could respond in kind also, but the man apparently didn't understand what Erik was doing and didn't say anything.

They walked over to the Kapellenweg stop to catch the tram and they arrived just in time to see it pulling away. With Erik glaring at the electronic screen that said _Nachste Strassenbahn Ankunft 7 Minuten,_ willing it to count down faster, they sat down to wait for the next one. It was aggravatingly cold out; Erik’s nose felt frozen already. If he were home his mother would be making him hot chocolate or matzoh and cooing over him and he would not be freezing.

Charles was pressed in close to his side against the bitter cold despite how much Edie had forced him to bundle up before they left. He realized the man wasn’t wearing his gloves.

“Hey, where did your gloves go?”

“What?” Charles asked, and then immediately changed the subject.  "How do you say 'how are you' in German?"

“Charles, we’re going to be out all morning, you seriously didn’t bring them?”

“I don’t need them,” the man insisted. “Come on, let’s practice German. Tell me, please?”

Erik frowned, glaring at him, but Charles ignored it. He knew the man was changing the subject, but even without that he was less than enthused. It was too early and too cold for him to have his normal avidity for German lessons. Charles was only trying to seduce him anyway.

" _Wie gehts es Inhen_ ," he replied nonetheless. Seduction seemed a good trade off for everything else Charles had put him through lately.

"And how do you say 'I'm fine, thank you'?"

Charles didn’t repeat after him, denying him the primal pleasure of hearing him speak German. Erik wondered how long it would take Charles to move on to the seduction part.

"You can say _'Danke, gut_ '."

Charles reached across and laid his ungloved hand on Erik's thigh for warmth, pressing even closer so that when he spoke again he was murmuring straight against the skin behind Erik's jaw.

"How do you say 'fuck me'?" he hissed, making Erik's heart fully stop. His brain too apparently, because he couldn't come up with anything.

"Erik?" Charles murmured, massaging his hand into the narrow channel between Erik's legs. "Well?"

"Fu—um-- _fick mich_ ," he gasped.

Charles tossed his free arm around Erik's shoulders, grasping him close and nuzzling in even closer, hotter. When the man licked his lips he grazed Erik's throat and made him shiver hard.

"How," he gasped. "How do you say 'Oh _god’_ ," his voice breathy and shrill "'fuck me _harder'_."

" _Charles_ ," Erik growled breathlessly, cock trapped miserably against the seam of his jeans which really hadn't seemed so cruelly _tight_ just a few minutes ago.

"Oh my, German really is much more succinct than I had imagined!" Charles pulled back to tease laughingly. "I never knew my name meant something so _filthy_. It makes sense now that I've grown up to be such an utter sexual deviant."

Erik still wasn't walking properly when they stepped off the cable car at the castle, and probably had a pained expression in all of the pictures Charles insisted on taking. He was surprised there was any space left on the memory card after all the snapshots from yesterday (which had included everything from a view of the city at sunset to multiple close ups on garden gnomes and street signs and shot after shot after shot of Erik). The people on the tram had given him strange stares, he was sure of it, and they hadn't let up when he moved onto the bus. He knew they could all tell he was fighting off bone-shattering arousal. This was all Charles' fault and he didn't understand how he was supposed to have a fun day sight-seeing with a man who continuously got a kick out of giving him blue balls.

Then again, he suspected this was simply thrilling revenge for Erik tossing him on his ass that morning. An even more cynical part of him suspected it was all just a painful ploy to keep him too distracted to call Charles out on his recent strangeness.

The worst part of it was that Charles managed to look so cheerful about it, doing his same fluttering bird routine, bounding around the castle photographing everything that moved and plenty of things that didn't. He dragged more tourists into taking pictures of the two of them together than Erik could count, and that was before they even started on the tour inside the castle itself. How anyone could have this much fun in what was essentially a big outdoor lobby (and in the freezing December weather at that) was absolutely beyond him, even after having more than a full year to accrue data on how Charles managed to have fun with normal everyday activities.

The tour guide was some young girl that looked even younger and acted much much older: Erik assumed she was probably in her twenties even though she appeared to be twelve and glared them all down like a ninety-year-old prison warden.

When she called the group together she gave them all a healthy looking-over as if X-raying them for possible shank material, pausing with confusion when she got to Charles' beaming smile.

She went over the rules of the castle in German, repeating herself line by line in an English that was less than perfect but so confidently spoken that it allowed no room for critique or correction. They would not stray on their own, they would not use flash photography, and they would not touch _anything_. The 'on pain of death' was left out, probably because it was redundant after the way she glared at them.

"She seems to really love being here," Charles murmured to Erik as the tour got underway. Charles’ sarcasm was a curious beast, spoken so genuinely and energetically that to the unpracticed ear it wasn’t sarcastic at all. Erik was glad that he was one of the practiced ears and put his arm around Charles’ shoulder as they followed the girl inside.

Erik didn't catch the girl's name, wasn't sure if she'd ever given it, but started thinking of her as Dour Wench. He was once again thrilled that Charles could not in fact read his mind because he was sure to get smacked over that. Really, though, he couldn't help what his brain decided to name people, could he? He had to give her some kind of moniker, didn't he? He couldn't just think of her as Murderous Girl In Charge of the Tour for the rest of the day.

So they followed the Dour Wench through the very important front entry that Erik had been through more times than he could remember only because he had been so young at the time that all memories sort of bled together into a myriad of boring. He tried to ignore the copious clicking of cameras all around him, especially Charles'. Tourists were the reason he preferred to look at monuments through the computer screen.

"Do cheer up, darling," Charles suggested, taking his picture. "I think we'll have lots of fun!"

Erik didn't bother to point out that Charles probably also thought they'd have fun at customs or the DMV or getting their teeth cleaned. But he had brought Charles to Germany to enjoy his fucking hometown and enjoy it he damn well would, even though he was being forced to be there. Even though it was freezing. Even though he’d rather be sitting on the couch letting his mother make him her cinnamon hot chocolate. Even though Charles was being weirder than weird lately.

“Here, you take a couple,” Charles said towards the end of the tour, passing Erik the camera and shoving his hands under his armpits.

“I told you to wear those gloves!” Erik hissed, looking around to make sure no one saw him holding a camera. Dour Wench saw him, of course, because she saw everything and distrusted it all. She gave Erik a warning glance, as if this sudden furtiveness was a telling sign of future criminality. “You know I don’t take pictures!”

“There’s no one here to care if you’re a tourist or not,” Charles groaned, rolling his eyes. “No one knows you!”

“You know that doesn’t matter,” Erik sniped back. Erik’s hatred for tourists and fear of being mistaken for one knew no bounds, and Charles had been apprised of that and had continued to date him so he was not allowed to complain about it now.

“Oh, a tapestry! Take a picture of that!” Charles insisted, elbowing him with his hands still clenched under his arms so that he resembled a rather manic bird. Erik turned to look, seeing Dour Wench standing severely off to the side of a tattered piece of crap pinned to a wall behind glass. Every single fanny-packed freak was blinking through their camera lenses at it and Erik grit his teeth at the thought of joining their bevisored troup.

“Eriiiiiik,” Charles whined, bouncing against him impatiently.

Growling, Erik snapped a lightning-quick shot he hoped no one noticed.

“That didn’t look very good,” Charles complained. “I’m sure you didn’t get it. Do it again. Come on, please, I want to show everyone the tapestry!”

“You don’t even care about the tapestry! You don’t even know what tapestry that is!”

“It’s whatever tapestry she just said it is,” pouted Charles. “And it’s important, like she said. Oldest complete tapestry in the region!”

“Well if you wanted a good picture you should have worn your gloves like my mother said!”

“Oh your mother, your mother,” Charles grumbled back, and Erik’s heart chilled.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“What’s what supposed to mean?” The man ignored any intensity Erik could attempt to convey. “Here, give me your gloves, I’ll do it myself.”

Erik could have been catty, said that if he wanted gloves he should have accepted his mother’s offer, but he didn’t. He gave Charles his gloves and the camera and put his own hands in his pockets for warmth.

“Thank you,” the man smiled back at him, kissing him warmly. “You’re a real _mensch_.”

“You must be rubbing off on me,” Erik grinned. Charles was a saint ninety-nine percent of the year. So he was currently going insane. Erik was just getting the concentrated insanity he would have been experiencing all year with a normal boyfriend. He needed to keep that in mind.

“I wouldn’t mind rubbing off on you,” Charles purred, holding Erik tightly around the waist and arching into his hip.

“Yes _please_.”

After the castle they were both frozen to the bone, so they went to a bar to warm up, although Erik didn’t understand why.

“We could just go home to warm up, you know.”

“No, no, no!” Charles cried, unbuttoning his jacket as he climbed up onto an awkwardly tall stool. “We can’t go back yet! Vetter’s Brauhaus is famous for its wheat beer! Please?”

“It’s not even noon!”

“We’re on vacation!”

As always, arguing with Charles could only get you so far when he was in earnest. So of course Erik allowed himself to be filled with beer and defrosted in public, not in his pajamas and not on his mother’s couch and not from the inside out by his mother’s hot chocolate.

Propped up on his bar stool, feeling slowly came back to him, and that feeling was exhaustion.

“Sit up, please, Otto thinks you’re dying, I’m sure,” Charles said, tugging him from where he’d collapsed on top of the warbled wood. Erik really couldn’t care less what the bartender thought of him. How dare he have such a very German name and how dare Charles know it two minutes into meeting.

“Okay,” he said, sitting up and rubbing his face. In a second he had his beer chugged down like an alcoholic champ. “There. Beer had. Yum, wheat. Now let’s go home and take a nap.”

“Nap!” Charles laughed incredulously. “I can't believe you'd want to stay inside and waste such gorgeous weather!" Erik shook his head in amazement. How was overcast and negative-below equaling gorgeous these days? “We’re already out, we might as well stay out. The student jail! The university library! The apothecary museum!” He pulled out his pocket travel guide, a sure sign of terror to come.

"Please," Erik begged, beat down by the mere mention of all these ridiculous tasks. "No more. Unless we’re going to the museum of sleep, I don’t want any part of it. I’m serious, Charles. You had me out all yesterday, we just got to town. I’m on vacation too, you know. I want to relax. I don’t want to be running around all the time!”

"Fine," Charles shrugged. "I'll go by myself."

Erik balked so hard he nearly choked. "You'll get lost!"

"My travel guide has a map. Give me your mum's address and I'll take a taxi back when I'm done."

But the thought of setting Charles free on the streets of Germany with no way to contact him should something happen was too terrifying for thought.

"Mom wanted to come out for lunch, she'll be happy to go sight-seeing with you."

Charles seemed shocked. Actually, he seemed slightly scandalized. "Alone? You want me to sightsee with your mother _alone_?"

"Since you'll be with my mother, you won't be alone," he pointed out.

Charles took a long swig of his beer and kept staring at it even when he was done.

"I don't want to inconvenience her. I'll be fine on my own," he finally insisted. Erik thought he recognized a touch of stiffness in the man’s tone, but Charles wasn’t meeting his gaze and it was hard to cull more clues from him.

"It'll be a good chance for you two to spend time together," said Erik.

That didn't seem to make Charles feel any better, even though Erik had said it expressly to make him feel better.

"I don't speak German and she doesn't speak English, what are we supposed to do?" he argued sharply.

"Hey," Erik balked, brushing Charles' hair back. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," Charles said with a wide-eyed, blushing glance.

“Come on, just tell me.”

“If I said there’s nothing wrong then there’s nothing wrong.”

“Fine, fine,” Erik huffed. “I'll just call my mom and have her take a taxi here, then I'll take it back to her place. Where do you want to take her? I'll make sure she knows how to get there."

"I don't know," Charles said indifferently.

"Check your book," he suggested before getting his handy out and dialing up his mother.

Edie refused to take a taxi, balking at the expense even though the chances of Erik letting her pay for it were nonexistent, so they waited at the bar for her to arrive via bus. It still didn't take that long, and Erik helped Charles figure out where to bring Edie while they nursed another beer. Nap in sight, Erik found he was more capable of handling another minute in this bar. But now, as if to counter his enthusiasm, Charles’ heart didn't seem especially in it.

" _Was ist los?_ " Erik questioned, putting his arm around the man's shoulders and pulling him into his neck. Charles wrapped both arms around Erik's slim waist.

"I--oh, I'm just thinking of Raven again," he sighed morosely, rubbing his forehead against Erik's neck. A part of him thought it was a touch too despondent, a smidge on the theatrical side, and that it had taken Charles too long to come up with it, but he pushed his natural cynicism away, grimacing into Charles’ short hair instead.

How did that damned girl manage to make her brother upset from thousands of miles away?

"Why? What did she say when you talked to her?"

"She's still not answering my calls. Logan says she's alive though, so there's that," the man sighed. Damn it, Erik would have to deal with this. He had to pull out the big guns. He had been hoping to keep the secret a little longer, and wasn't entirely sure he'd have to give it away yet, assuming he could bend Raven to his will by pure intimidation, which he wasn't confident in. She seemed to vacillate between casually ignoring his ire and grudgingly following orders. Hopefully he'd be able to _guilt_ her into answering her brother's calls.

Erik couldn't plan his attack too thoroughly right then though because Edie walked in.

She stared between them for a moment and then clapped her hands excitedly.

" _Erik! Did you finally ask him?_ " she cheered.

" _Was? Mama, what are you talking about?_ "

" _You didn't ask him to move in with you yet? I thought for sure...What have you been doing all morning together if not asking him?!_ "

" _Achtung, Mama: stop saying that!_ "

" _What, he's going to suddenly learn German?_ "

Erik narrowed his eyes at her and glanced at Charles, who certainly seemed clueless enough, but the man was a good actor.

" _He's crafty, Mama. You have no idea..._ "

" _Well we're going to have the whole afternoon together so I'll get some idea!_ " Edie said ecstatically, bounding forth to wrap her arms around the brunet. She pulled him from his seat and hauled him to the entrance, calling behind her " _There's lunch in the fridge! The key's under the mat! Stay safe!"_

Erik paused his mother in her kidnapping long enough to kiss his boyfriend goodbye, and tried to figure out why Charles looked as if he were being lead to his death instead of a fun afternoon doing all the touristy things he apparently had his heart set on doing.

 

 


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two chapters because you guys are such adorable dears and I appreciate so much all the love and support you give this fic and my hodgepodge writing. Sorry I can't do this more regularly! I thank you all just the same!

Charles and Edie were back by dinner loaded down with knickknacks and food from the Christmas market, including cinnamon cookies for Erik. His mother looked cheerful enough so he assumed they had had a fun time although Charles looked a little wane, like he did after benefactor's dinners or high society parties. He considered cheering the man by telling him that his sister had seen the error of her ways (or the nearest approximation Raven could ever manage), but decided against it solely because he wanted to try his hand at cheering the man without his damned sister’s help.

Erik had called Azazel as soon as he got back to his mother's and the man answered the phone with a furious "Do you have any idea what time it is? It's my one day off you jerk!"

"Put Raven on the phone," he had replied, cleaning his nails.

"What are you talking about? Raven's not with me."

"Don't play dumb with me, I'm not her brother--just put her on."

"...She says she doesn't want to talk to you."

"I just bet she doesn't. Put her on or I'm snitching the two of you out to Charles."

There was muffled talking on the other line and then Raven’s droning, bored voice.

"I'm sorry, Raven can't come to the phone right now because SHE'S FUCKING PISSED AT YOU, YOU _BASTARD_!"

Erik winced, pulling his ear away from her shriek and when he recovered enough to come back it was Azazel on the line again.

"I hope you're happy," the soft-voiced man growled. "I very much did not need that this early in the morning."

"She's really going to regret being this awful to Charles, and me for that matter, when she finds out about Paris."

"Why don't you just give it up?" Azazel asked, careful still not to give it away. Erik was blessed to have a manager devoted enough to Erik's secrets to not let a pair of knockers induce him to blab. Although Azazel and Raven had been surreptitiously sleeping together for months and Erik had secretly bought her a ticket to meet him and Charles in Paris for New Year’s ages ago, Azazel had not told her a thing. And bad as Raven was being lately, he still wasn’t sure it was bad _enough_ to put that secrecy to waste, to put all his cards on the table early. It wasn’t just that he wanted the big surprise, opening his letter the night before her flight (Erik would only have to hide Charles’ phone for about twelve hours, no hard feat), the driver waiting for her at Charles de Gaulle, Erik making sure he and Charles were in the hotel restaurant when she walked in, the look on Charles’ face. It was also the issue that telling her this far in advance would make it damned difficult to keep Charles from finding out. He wasn’t sure he could risk it, and didn’t have a problem telling Azazel so.

"There’s still over a week before her flight leaves. That’s over a week’s worth of opportunity for her to blab to Charles. She’s just not used to keeping her mouth shut around him, and I’ve been milking this secret for nearly a month. It’s got to be a surprise, seeing her in Paris. I want him to be surprised. No way; telling her is the last resort."

"Erik, I think this _is_ the last resort. They haven’t spoken in three days. They’ve never gone three _hours_ without speaking before, not since they were _born._ She's approaching critical instability and I can't image that Charles is far behind her. At this rate they'll have simultaneous nervous breakdowns, and then where will your swell little vacation be?"

He could only assume that since Raven was not screeching in the background complaining about being accused of impending female hysterics, she was not in the room any longer. Gnashing his teeth with the ire of being reasoned with like this, he was still relieved. Of course. Charles was going crazy because of Raven. It was just Raven, nothing more.

"Well what am I supposed to do? If I tell her she'll blab to Charles for sure!"

"Since I am much smarter than you, I have already thought of a solution to your problem: She'll email Charles, explaining that her phone is broken, and I'll proofread her emails to make sure they don't divulge anything."

Erik glared at his phone.

"With my luck and her secrecy skills she'll post it on Facebook for all the world to see before the day is out! What am I supposed to do if she lets the cat out of the bag regardless? It's not like I'll be able to cancel her ticket once Charles knows about it."

"We’ll put her Facebook on hold. And if she lets it slip then you get to throw her off a bridge, how about that?"

"I'd prefer the Eiffel Tower," Erik growled, and then sighed angrily. What choice did he have? If Azazel was right Charles would collapse into a puddle of mania with one more hour without Raven speaking to him. Whatever he thought of the situation, he couldn’t deny that Charles and Raven were inexorably chained to one another; these last few days had given him too much evidence to support it. He just hoped that didn’t mean he had to give up on his dream of them one day living together without the girl in the spare room kicking them out of his living room to watch Tarantino. "Goddamn it _fine._ Put that harlot on the phone."

"Oh harrrrrlot!" Azazel called. "There's someone on the phone for you."

" _Tell him to fuck off!_ " he could hear Raven scream back.

"Trust me, you're going to want to hear what he has to say."

It took about two minutes to actually get Raven on the phone, then just two seconds to tell her the happy news, but another five minutes to get her to believe it, and then another five minutes to talk her down from hysterics.

"Are you seriously serious?" she sobbed even though they had by then established that he was.

"Go pack your bag," he sighed. "And if you breathe a goddamn single word of this to your brother I'll gut you and turn you into _saucisson."_

"I don't know what that is but I will because _I'm going to goddamn Paris!_ " she shrieked, clearly jumping for joy on the other end.

"Not a word! Do you hear me? Not to ANYONE--not to the cafe kids, not to Moira, not even to Logan! Not a single fucking person or I'll assassinate you before you even get through customs! I don’t care if Azazel has to lock you in your room for the next week!"

"I won't, oh Erik I won't! I won't tell anybody! Ha! I'll send them a fucking postcard from Paris! Won't they get a kick out of that!"

"Write to your brother that you're going to stop being such an awful bitch, and let Azazel ensure it's not full of obvious slips, got it?"

"He can read whatever the hell he wants, I'm going to Paris! Oh, Erik, you're the best brother-in-law ever _ever **ever**!" _ she trilled. Erik couldn't help but smile; she'd never called him her brother in law before. Maybe he'd been right and all it would take would be a holiday to Paris to make the girl cheerful enough not to sob his plan into failure when he asked Charles to move in with him.

"Okay okay, cool it. Put Azazel back on."

"Ohhh lover!" Raven sing-songed off the phone. "Your husband wants to nag at you. I've got to go plan for Parie!"

"You've put her in a cheerful mood," Azazel said appreciatively.

"Yeah, she's almost as chipper as her brother now. Don't let that good mood distract you from successfully censoring her email. Maybe find a way to block Facebook for a week, too."

"No problem. Is there anything else?"

Erik considered asking about Charlie, asking if the cat was okay, if he was still hanging around, if he looked skinnier or less loved with Erik on vacation. But he decided he couldn't risk it, not with Azazel. The man wouldn’t be mean to a cat, of course, but he would probably call animal services and get the thing put in the pound, which may be good for it but would risk it getting adopted by some lesser non-cafe family before Erik could come back to claim it.

"No, that's it. We can email about the café. Even with a phone card this call can't be cheap."

"Alright. Hey, how's the vacation going?"

"Fine," Erik grumbled. No point saying more than that. "I'll talk to you later."

"Bye, boss."

Needless to say, after swearing Raven to so much secrecy he couldn’t go spilling it all to Charles the moment he got back. Divesting him of jackets and shopping bags, he kept his mouth shut. He heard all about their day, from Charles in English in one ear and from his mother in German in the other. While Edie got dinner ready, Charles took a hot shower, cuddling up with Erik all toasty and damp afterwards to show him the pictures from the market and the museum and the random shops they went into. Erik tried to not think it strange there were very few of Charles and Edie together.  

Warm, cuddling, kissing, Erik counted Charles as successfully cheered, even though he still seemed a bit sleepy, worn down (good signs that he would be able to have a lazy tomorrow, Erik hoped). Trying to sound cavalier, he stretched and suggested the man check his email.

Following directions quickly (Erik suspected he was happy to have an excuse to check his Facebook), Charles sprawled on the couch, his feet in Erik’s lap, clicking through his computer avidly. Erik knew this could be a mistake--chances were a good portion of those emails were work-related and very likely to send Charles off on a tangent of work. He got lucky, though, and seeing Raven’s email apparently took precedence.

“Hey--one from Raven!” the man cheered, and Erik needn’t have bothered trying to look so surprised because Charles promptly stopped paying attention to him. Not for long, though.

“Humph, rather short...Her phone’s broken, apparently. Busy studying. Well I guess I shouldn’t be surprised,” Charles sighed, sounding a little less cheered now.

“What?” Erik balked, grabbing his computer.

_Hey bro. Sorry I’ve been out of touch; Logan said you’d called. Phone broken. Plus, busy studying. Hope you’re having fun in the Vaterland. Happy Hanukkah and all that stuff. Love you! ttyl_

Dysmally terse; Erik knew full well that their emails to one another usually spanned pages because most of the time he had to sit there for the hour it took Charles to email her even though they lived together and spoke every day. That Raven could write this to him after three days of not seeing each other was bizarre to the extreme. Was this Raven holding herself back to avoid saying too much? Or Azazel censoring too much? It actually sounded much more as if the stoic man had written it with minimal input from his secret girlfriend.

“Well,” he coughed. “I’m sure she’ll write more.” He’d have to call and tell her to fucking write more. What the hell.

“I’ll just call her,” Charles smiled, jumping up of the couch.

“What?” he asked, squeaking ignobly. “You can’t! Her--her phone’s broken!”

“I’ll have Logan bring his phone up to her,” Charles explained, grabbing his phone and going to the bedroom.

“Wait!” Erik yelped, but it was too late, the door shut.

Fuck. Well, this might not be so bad. He was almost sure Raven was at Azazel’s. And even if she was at her place, she would know better than to actually get on the phone with him. Fake a coughing fit, pretend cell interference, run away. She would think of something. He just had to trust that. Sit here and stress and hope for the best.

“Erik, _kleiner!”_ his mother sang from the kitchen. _“Dinner is ready!_ ”

Dinner was mac and cheese and a salad and Erik helped set the table and get things ready. He couldn’t help cook, but he could at least do all the rest. He praised her cooking and asked more about her day. It was hard to stress about the sort of conversation Charles could be having when he was just hanging out with his mother.

“ _Ich liebe dich,”_ she said as they laid out the last plate, reaching up as high as she could to wrap her arms around his shoulders, kissing his cheek. He held her back, picking her up off the floor and making her squeal and beat his shoulders till he put her back down.

“ _Ich liebe dich auch, Mutti,”_ he grinned, kissing her cheek. They were interrupted immediately by Irena, making her daily appearance to complain about her bodily pains and get her free meal.

“ _My head is killing me, but when isn’t it? Migraines, I tell you--I hope no one has to suffer as I suffer. What is this? American food? This is terrible for my digestion, you know this--oh well, what am I going to do, starve? I need to keep my blood sugar up, no matter how disgusting the food. Such is my life.”_

Taking a deep breath, Edie looked up at him, willing his mouth shut. “ _Go get Charles for dinner, kleiner._ ”

When he opened the door Charles was on the phone, sitting hunched up on the bed, head in his hands.

“I don’t know, I don’t know _what_ to do,” he was hissing quietly into the phone, but not quietly enough so that Erik couldn’t hear him.

The man looked up and saw him standing in shock in the doorway and blinked wildly at him--obviously surprised and embarrassed. He hung up in a rush. “I have to go, Moira, love you, bye.”

“What was that?” Erik questioned.

“What was what?” the man asked breezily. “Dinner ready? Smells amazing.”

Erik stopped him before he could leave the room.

“What were you talking to Moira about? What don’t you know what to do about?”

“Nothing!” Charles laughed. “She had a bad date, that’s all, and I was telling her I don’t know what to do about it. I’ll tell you all about it after dinner if you’re that interested. Come on, everyone’s waiting.”

On cue, Edie called out “ _Erik, come open this wine Charles got at the market_.” He couldn’t keep standing there in the doorway like a yutz. He had to let Charles through, even though he knew it just had to be a downright lie: Charles never didn’t know what to do about someone else’s love life, or any other aspect of their lives. The definition of know-it-all was not fully understood until Charles was born.

Was it that he hadn’t been able to get a hold of Raven? Was he complaining about that to Moira? But then why lie to Erik about it? Why make something up?

Dinner was wonderful, and Erik refused to let anything show during it, not in front of his mother. She didn’t need to know something was going on, not when he didn’t even know what that something was. She had been there with Magda as well, she didn’t need to stress about that happening again. He wished he could save himself from that same stress.

" _I think Charles is getting sick_ ," Edie claimed, pouring the man more water and brushing his hair back from his brow.

He was surprised when Charles ducked shyly from out of her grasp, pretending to reach and pour himself another glass of wine. Another _big_ glass of wine.

" _He's just tired after all your sightseeing_ ," Erik replied, rubbing Charles’ back. He wished that were the case, that it could be as simple as that. Maybe it was, maybe it all had a simple explanation.

" _I don't think so. He seemed tired before we even started sightseeing_."

Erik frowned at this news. Charles had seemed tooth-achingly energetic when _they_ were sightseeing together.

"Are you feeling alright, Maus?" he questioned, pressing the back of his hand to Charles' cheek. Charles didn't feel too warm, which actually disappointed him. He wished so badly that he could chalk all this up to a bad cold.

Charles shrugged out of his grasp enough to swallow down the rest of his wine. He’d hardly touched his mac and cheese, Erik realized.

"In America I'm Mausi but here I'm Maus?"

Erik blushed hard. Mausi was a bit too kitschy to toss around as a grown man in front of people that knew how absolutely ridiculous it was. "That's not an answer."

"Neither is that."

" _Charrrles_ ," he growled and the man laughed, slightly out of pitch.

"I feel fine! Why?"

"Mom said you were a bit listless today."

Charles shrugged but didn’t look away from where he was playing with his food. "You saw the pictures. Did I look listless?"

The man had a point: in all the photos he was as _Heilligkeit_ as ever, beaming as if he were having the time of his absolute life.

He turned back to his mother with a shrug. " _He says he feels fine._ "

Edie twisted her mouth pensively. " _Maybe I was imagining it..._ "

" _Well I don't feel fine,"_ Irena bemoaned glumly. " _Your neighbor has gotten me sick. I knew he would._ "

" _He's not my neighbor,_ " Erik growled with a roll of his eyes. " _He's my boyfriend."_

Irena looked morosely shocked. " _That's not polite dinner conversation."_

Erik rolled his eyes once more for good measure. This day was going to kill him.


	10. Chapter 10

After dinner, Erik was stuffed just about to the gills, and was glad when his mother set them up on the couch with the type of motherly insistence Charles couldn’t thwart for midnight tourist hikes or moonlit bike rides or some other frigid madness Erik couldn’t even imagine.

“ _Okay, this night before Hanukkah I’ve got a real treat!”_ Edie cheered giddily, holding up a dusty VHS.

“ _Nicht, Mama, bitte!”_ he groaned, covering his face.

“What?” Charles questioned. “What’s going on?”

“ _Baby filme!”_ his mother exclaimed, and Charles didn’t really need any help translating that.

“ _Baby movies,”_ Irena groused miserably. “ _I wanted to watch Coronation Street. I share my bed, I lose my couch, my house is inundated with foreigners giving me diseases and eating all my food--and now I don’t get to watch Coronation Street. Why, God? Why me?”_

Everyone ignored her and, deprived of a sympathetic audience, she huffed and sighed her way into her room like a wounded bear returning to its den, leaving Edie to fiddle with an ancient tape player likely just as old as Erik. As she got the film started she bounded back to the couch to wiggle between him and Charles, patting both their legs excitedly.

“Water anyone?” Charles coughed, jumping up without waiting for a response. The movie started, Erik’s first birthday, and Erik groaned, burying his face in his mother’s shoulder.

“Oh, that cake! I made you that cake myself, decorated and everything, it turned out so nice. Lasted about two seconds.”

“Holy Lord, so amazingly cute,” Charles gasped, coming back into the living room with no water for anyone. He glanced at the couch but took a seat in the reading chair.

“What are you doing?” Erik questioned. “Come sit with us.”

“There’s no room,” Charles claimed, although they’d fit four people on it just the other day. “OH MY GOOD LOOK AT YOUR ADORABLE FACE!”

It was apparently not enough to shout at the TV, though, so Charles pulled out his phone and started snapping pictures: baby Erik being introduced to his cake, baby Erik slamming his fists into his cake, baby Erik smearing frosting all over everything. Erik had to watch with grudging enjoyment as well. There was his mother, hair ungrayed, face unlined, laughing and smiling beside him, wiping him clean, tickling him. It was stilling too when it was time to open presents and his mother took the camera and there was his father, lifting him up out of his highchair and setting him on his knee, opening a brightly-colored box to reveal a toy train, which Erik immediately ignored in favor of the paper, gnawing joyfully with his diminutive shark teeth.

Smiling, looking over at Charles, he was surprised. Rather than beaming out of skull as Erik expected, Charles was staring at the screen with a pensive-looking frown, brow deeply furrowed. As soon as he noticed Erik watching he stopped, sitting back and blushing, raising a hand to rub the furrow out from between his brows. What the hell was wrong with him?

Worse, when Edie got up to share the moment, laughing and holding Charles’ shoulders, the man ducked out right from underneath her like an eel.

“Whoops, look at the time! I should email Raven back before it gets too late!” he squeaked and ran away, shutting his door behind him firmly.

And that was the final straw.

...Well, okay, when it came to Charles Erik was blessed with a large reserve of last straws. But this was definitely one of the _last_ last straws.

Erik shut off the movie and told his mother Charles might take a while (he was sure Charles was going to make a point to take a while) and it was getting late and they should pick it up again tomorrow. As soon as he could conceivably convince her to go to bed, yawning and stretching himself for good measure, he escaped into the sewing room, just in case Charles decided to leave his room. Once he was reasonably sure no one was going to burst in on him he grabbed a piece of paper and as secretly as possible started writing.

_Symptoms,_ he scrawled on one side of the page, and then _Diagnosis_ on the other, underlining them both. At the very bottom he wrote _Treatment._ He took a moment to decide if he should keep it in English and hide it from his mother or write it in German and hide it from his boyfriend. In the end he went with English, only because he’d already done it and had wasted so much time thinking about that he no longer had time to rewrite it. Charles could give up his farce of a phone call at any moment and come looking for him.

It was obvious that he could no longer pussyfoot around this problem, half considering issues and guessing at answers and bumbling through bits and pieces of suspicion to possibly consider doing this or that about it. It was time to face the issue head on, before it got any worse. His mother was a dear, and was of course going to give Charles evey benefit of the doubt, but eventually she was going to notice _something_ was going on, and think the worst. She would think, just like Magda, that Charles did not like her. Erik could not allow this to happen.

In a way Erik was relieved, and not just because he was asserting himself against this problem. There was the added bonus that for as long as he was fighting this battle with Charles he did _not_ have to fight the moving-in-together battle. If there was anything being German had taught him, it was the importance of not fighting a war on two fronts simultaneously. Picking one was only too easy. His mother was here now, whereas home was still weeks away. This was about making things right for his mother, making sure she never went through what she’d gone through with Magda ever again. How could Charles moving in with him, how could his own extravagant happiness, compare to the rescue of his own dear mother’s happiness?

With a deep breath Erik grit his teeth and stared at his empty list with determination. Where did he begin? What was a symptom and what was simple everyday weirdness? He decided to just write down everything, every little thing that had seemed off about Charles, from the moment they had gotten on the plane till now.

_Did not sleep on plane,_ he wrote, and then beamed, hopping to _Diagnosis_ on the other side of the page and writing _Nerves._ That was easy, Charles had essentially _told_ him that’s what it was, after all. He picked his brain for the second. _Weirdness RE picture,_ he decided, when Charles had that strange reaction to seeing his teenage self’s photo on his mother’s wall _._ That took a little longer. After a moment he decided to hedge his bets: _Embarrassed? Really was calling Raven?_ He continued on from there.

_Hid food. = wasn’t hungry?_

_Rabid tourism. = Really is a rabid tourist (collected tour books for weeks, Things To Do List killed entire square mile of rainforest)._

_Refused to wear mittens. = ~~Allergic to wool?~~ ~~Too cute?~~ (no such thing for Charles). _ He had to leave that one alone finally, at a loss. It wasn’t as if Charles had a penchant for masochism, an enjoyment of freezing his fingers off. What could have been his excuse?

_Mom told me to cheer him up (when does he ever need cheering?)_

_Mom said he seemed under the weather touristing (when is he ever ‘under the weather’, esp. w/ company?)_

_Moody at bar (when is he ever moody?)_

_Lied about phone call with Moira._

Erik stared at the growing list, heart beating faster in his chest, fear mounting. When you looked at it all on paper like this, running out of room, having to write smaller to fit it all in, it really was daunting. He realized how unprepared he was to deal with something daunting.

Charles was so easy most of the time. Erik recognized that, and thanked his lucky stars for it. When Janos complained that some girl (or some guy) throwing an apoplectic snit fit, when Sean talked on and on about how impossible it was to figure out why his girlfriend of the week was no longer speaking to him, Erik just sat back and sighed with relief. Charles never accused him of cheating and then bleached all his clothes and threw them off the balcony. Charles never broke down sobbing at dinner because Erik ordered the steak and didn’t he realize meat was murder. Even apart from the crazy shit the cafe kids ran into, there were the normal, day to day issues Erik never really had to deal with.

Charles was even-keel, hard to ruffle. If Erik annoyed him he didn’t give him the cold shoulder and snarl at him, he _told_ him. They discussed it, without rancor, without hurt feelings. They moved on, together. Charles didn’t let things fester. He took care of himself. If he had issues at work or with Raven or in general he would tell Erik about it, sure, but he dealt with it himself. If there was something he wanted Erik to do he asked him to do it. But Erik wasn’t often called upon to fix anything in Charles’ life. Which was good because Erik was terrible at fixing things in other people’s lives. He didn’t have many friends to begin with, and he had never felt the urge to help any of them. He would love to help Charles in any way he could, but Charles never needed much helping, which was undoubtedly for the best. Although Erik didn’t have much experience to base this on, he was still sure he’d be bad at it.

And sure enough, sitting here looking at this list, staring at the bottom where he’d glibly scrawled _Treatment,_ he realized he had no idea what to write. The one time Charles needed his help he couldn’t figure out how to help him. And for once it didn’t seem like Charles was just going to toss him the answer.

He wiped his palms on his jeans and took a deep breath. He could do this. He could figure this out. Charles was his boyfriend. He loved Charles. He could figure out what was wrong with Charles, all on his own, even with Charles ducking and dodging him at every turn. More than that, he _could_ figure out how to fix it. He just had to try hard, and he could do it.

He better be able to: there was no one he could fall back on if he couldn’t. Emma, probably his best friend after Charles, certainly wouldn’t help, wouldn’t know where to begin even if she did want to help. He’d been dating Charles for ages and if Emma knew five facts about him, four of them were probably incorrect. There was Raven, Raven was in his good graces--could he ask Raven? What time was it? That was it, he’d ask Raven.

In a moment he stopped himself though, gritting his teeth and reigning himself in. No. Tempting, but bad idea. Why talk about Charles standing on his own _away_ from Raven and _moving away_ from Raven, and then let himself run to Raven at the very first sign of something amiss? No, he had to do this on his own, if just to show that they could lead their lives, just he and Charles.

But before he could come up with anything, the door flew open and he clutched the paper to his chest protectively. Good thing--there was Charles, eying him suspiciously.

“What are you doing in here? What’s that?”

“Um...grocery list!” he stammered.

Charles frowned at him, but apparently decided he was in too much of a hurry to argue. “Your mum’s finally asleep. Get changed, let’s go out.”

“Out?” Erik balked. His worst nightmare: frozen midnight touristing.

“Yeah. Otto told us about that great techno club, remember?” His worst worst nightmare: frozen midnight touristing in nothing but skin-tight jeans and a mesh tank top.

“A techno club!” Erik choked. What the hell could Charles mean, dragging them to a fucking club? They didn’t go to clubs often -- Erik could count the times on one hand with fingers to spare -- but when they did it was only as an extended and public form of foreplay. There was something about the dense crush of hundreds of drunken bodies all gyrating to the same latest pop chart-topper that drove Charles to paroxysms of delight. On top of that, while Erik wasn’t quite nineteen anymore, neither was he so geriatric that the other club-goers didn’t ogle him, and Charles couldn’t get enough of the fact that Erik only ever glared back at them, unquestionedly _Charles’_. There was a surefooted possessiveness this inspired that Erik didn’t understand but thrilled on Charles getting off on.

It was hard to pinpoint the best sex of their relationship, but Erik had to think clubbing sex was certainly up there. If he weren’t such an introvert he was sure they’d do it much more often. Luckily Charles got enough of a high from it when he did go to come home randy and raring to go, so as far as Erik was concerned he got the best of it still.

Which made him realize.

It was like a light bulb going off in his brain, illuminating everything. He pulled the notepad away from his chest only just enough to write, right underneath _Treatment: **Sex**._

He was sorely tempted to cross out the whole rest of the list; with the cure in hand, the disease didn’t seem that important any more. _Sex,_ god _,_ of _course_ it was sex! When it came to Charles the first line of treatment was _always_ sex.  Sex was the broad-spectrum antibiotic of Charles’ life, it was his cure-all, his panacea. This was the man who, exhausted beyond all belief, requested “lazy sex” and when cursed with a bad day at the office, demanded “cheer-up sex”. He even believed that a good orgasm could clear your sinuses (Erik could testify to this). And clubbing could only mean sex. Although Erik didn’t have much experience clubbing, he had enough to know that much.

But...

Erik blinked at his boyfriend standing in the doorway of his mother’s adorable sewing room, of the room he’d been an infant in. Charles was talking, probably had been for a while because he was counting things off on his fingers and he was already on the ring finger. He had a sense it was reasons they should go clubbing, and continued to tune it out to focus on his inner turmoil. Now that he knew what Charles needed, how the hell was he supposed to give it to him?

Of course Charles wanted sex, Erik had known long ahead of time he was going to _want_ sex, he _always wanted_ sex. But Erik had thought he was physically capable of going two weeks without it if he had to. Charles went on business trips, sometimes for weeks at a time, after all. And even without that, Erik thought they’d probably gone two weeks without it before, just from different schedules or not being able to get rid of Raven or Logan or a million other people who could usurp Charles’ time. Erik had been ready and willing to put Charles off till Paris. But now...

This was different. This wasn’t something as petty as _want._ It was pretty much medically necessary that he fuck Charles.

The man was obviously going slowly insane, and only Erik’s cock could bring him back around. He had to do what he had to do. He just wasn’t going to do it anywhere his mother could catch him. And he wasn’t going to stomp around town in the middle of the night trying to find some seedy motel. And he certainly wasn’t going to shove himself into his tightest clothes and freeze his meager ass off shaking it in front of the two skimpy teenagers that would be braving the frigid weather to smoke cigarettes and piss off their parents.

Decided, he stood, interrupting Charles’ ongoing monologue. Erik used the element of surprise to kiss him, soundly and aggressively, pushing him up against the door and pinning him there, muffling his unheard arguments. Charles jumped underneath him from surprise, but quickly overcame his shock, turning his head to catch Erik’s mouth more securely, tongue lapping at him.

“I thought we couldn’t,” Charles gasped as Erik pulled his sweater up, slipping his hands against the man’s smooth, warm skin.

Erik grinned back at him, sure it looked perfectly devilish.

“Follow me.” 

* * *

 

“What is this?” Charles questioned, caressing Erik’s hips as he stood behind him.

“Shh,” Erik hissed back. There were apartments on either side of them and the last thing he needed was for someone to come out and interrupt them. Hand on the door knob, Erik turned and prayed it was as unlocked as it always was in his childhood.

The storage room had been a favorite treasure trove as a child. It was always full of people’s discarded knicknacks or furniture. There were always extra chairs, or boxes full of baby toys, ugly things wives no longer wanted their husbands to show around company, frilly things husbands no longer wanted wives to wear in public; once he’d found a human skull. It had turned out to be a well-made Halloween prop, but for a few days he had been absolutely certain he had stumbled upon evidence of a gruesome murder. He hoped there was nothing equally distracting tonight.

Erik smiled wide as the door swung open under his grip, unimpeded. He reached out, groping for the swinging bulb he knew was there, turning as he caught it. Charles winced and shielded his eyes as he switched it on, but he was smiling.

“Wow,” he said. “You’ve really outdone yourself.”

Erik had to admit it wasn’t much--it had seemed much larger when he was a kid. Three walls were lined with shelves, most of them filled with boxes or cans of paint, someone had filled half a wall with newspapers and magazines. There were some wooden chairs stacked in a corner, and a plastic Christmas tree. And all of it was brushed with a decent layer of dust.

“Hey, is it better than nothing?” Erik questioned.

Charles grinned back at him and followed him inside, shutting the door behind him. “Well, you’re here,” he said. “So it’s not _that_ bad. ” This was underscored by the man sliding his hands up Erik’s chest, making him shiver.

It felt good to kiss him again, as ardently as he wanted to, with no one watching to censor himself around. He loved his mother, but he hadn’t realized how difficult it would be to constrain himself when it came to Charles, to loose that innate sense that he could do whatever he wanted with the man. In America there was no one he liked enough to stop tangling tongues with Charles in public over. He hadn’t realized how anxious he had really felt, keeping everything above-board, affectionate but not lewd, in front of his mother, until now, alone together. Suddenly he could put his hand up Charles’ sweater without blushing, allow the man to hitch his leg over Erik’s hip without worrying about decency, could shove him up against the wall and listen to him moan, and it was like coming home.

“It’s cold in here,” Charles gasped when Erik dragged his shirt and sweater up over his head.

“It’ll warm up soon,” Erik grinned, biting Charles’ neck and sucking it into a bruise, making sure to aim low. If he wore a higher-collared sweater it might just cover it. Charles obviously wasn’t worried, arching against him, dragging him closer. He hadn’t realized how tense the man was until every muscles came loose underneath his ministrations. Charles’ hands in his hair, tugging at his clothes, his leg pinning him close enough to grind against in the most tantalizing way possible--no one was complaining about the cold now.

He made his way to Charles’ pants, quickly undoing the fly and slipping his hand inside, kneeling down.

“No, no, no!” Charles cried, dragging him back up again. “Come on, if this is the one time you touch me until Paris I want the real thing!”

Erik stared, gaping slightly. “What? Seriously? I...I didn’t bring any lube.”

In truth he purposefully hadn’t even _packed_ any lube, that way he’d have the perfect excuse to not sleep together (just in case Charles managed to wear him down to the point where he had to fall back on an excuse). He’d figured he could pick some up on the way to Paris. He hadn’t thought it would blow up in his face like this, though.

“Are you kidding me? Ugh, okay, use saliva.”

“That’s gross!”

“Oh my god, you’re such a baby,” Charles groaned, and walked straight out of the tiny room.

“Hey, where the hell are you going?!” Erik balked, chasing after his still shirtless boyfriend.

“I’m going get my lube! Stay up here and think about what you’ve done.”

Erik stayed the door for a minute, watching Charles’ muscles shift in the dim light as he walked, his pants slung low, still unbuttoned. Adjusting himself quickly, he shut the door, struggling not to touch himself until Charles came back. Charles hated it when he missed out on any of the action.

It seemed to take forever until the knock on the door came, to a point where Erik was imagining his mother had caught him, or one of the other neighbors. But when he opened the door it was just Charles in all his half-naked glory, his boxers showing where his pants gaped.

“What’s the password?” Erik questioned cheekily, running his finger under Charles’ boxer-hem.

Eyes half-lidded, Charles dangled a small bottle of lube between his fingertips. “Fick mich?” the man offered coyly.

Grinning, Erik pulled him inside roughly by the front of his jeans, shutting the door behind him and not missing the soft moan that escaped the smaller man. It reminded him that he still very much had to pay the man back for that maddening treatment at the tram stop this morning.

Luckily, Charles wasn’t adverse to rough treatment. Erik had always got the feeling it was one of the things Charles liked about him. Charles was so sweet and caring, he seemed to attract the sort of men who wanted to handle him with kids gloves, the sort that pretended he was made of thin glass; they missed his resilience, his daringness, his strength. By mere stroke of hard-won luck, Erik had never learned how to be anything but hard-edged with his partners. Charles had inspired in him, taught him, everything he knew about tenderness. He got the feeling Charles would prefer he forget it all at the moment, so he dutifully did so.

With one hand he took Charles by the shoulder and pushed him up against the shelves. The other held him lightly by the throat to make sure he stayed there. He didn’t miss the way Charles writhed appreciatively, standing just a tiny bit taller as Erik’s grip was too high. He didn’t move it, watching Charles’ eyes, watching the pupils dilate and the lids shiver half-closed, before he moved. Even then, it was only to take his free hand and loosen Charles’ pants, giving them the only incentive they needed to fall to the floor.

When he held his hand out for the lube Charles grinned and deftly dropped it down the front of his boxer briefs.

“Whoops,” the man smiled.

“You think you’re pretty smart, eh?” He knew Charles liked the way his voice came out, dangerously gravelly and low.

The man’s grin broadened in scope and he shifted his hips provocatively. “I’ve got my moments.”

Not to be bested, Erik plunged his hand inside without hesitation, feeling Charles’ solid heat, handling him roughly even after he’d recovered his wares, until Charles was wriggling in his grip, until the man cried out sharply.

The moment Erik released his throat, Charles was in his arms, trembling with such an over-sensitive assault, clutching him close. Erik didn’t miss the way the man subtly positioned him, though, making sure Erik’s thigh was firmly between his legs. Kissing, nuzzling into his hair, Erik gently stroked his boyfriend’s spine, his coiling hips, the curves of his ass, as Charles sighed into his shoulder, ground against his thigh.

“You want me?” Erik rasped.

Shuddering hard, Charles moaned back, “God, yes.”

Good answer. With a well-practiced act of legerdemain, Erik popped the cap and coated his fingers, shivering with anticipation. He hadn’t come to fingering early in life, but he’d come avidly. And he was going to make sure Charles did, too.

The man arched against him, gasped against his throat as his worked his way into him, slowly, one finger at a time, pulsating gently, deeper and deeper. Erik loved the tight clutch of his body, Charles gasping his name, mouth tickling his jaw. But before he had even added a third finger Charles was pulling away, mouth deep red and eyes blown wide.

“Okay, okay,” he gasped, breathless. “That’s enough.”

“You’re still tight,” Erik argued.

Charles just eyed him back thrillingly. “I want it tight.”

Erik shivered, but managed to turn into a shrug, smiling. “You’re the one that has to sit all through service tomorrow.”

He wasn’t that heartless, though; he’d go easy on him. He just wasn’t going to tell Charles that, not when the man was in this rough mood.

Instead he spun the man around, shoving him up against the wall, pinning him with his body as he yanked the man’s underwear down. Charles ate it all up, gasping and groaning, arching his body, clutching the shelves and nearly upending a can of paint, getting dust everywhere.

“Yes, yes, just like that,” Charles hissed. Erik certainly didn’t mind obliging. He was going to heal the fuck out of his boyfriend.

Entering Charles was always like coming home, the familiar grip of him, the ever-present sigh. Just to press his face into the man’s hair and inhale the heady scent of him, to feel smooth skin slick with sweat, to feel himself enveloped inch by inch, was magical--he suddenly couldn’t believe he’d thought to go ten days without this bliss. Every day being able to do this with Charles was a miracle he should never, ever take for granted.

Charles was tight, tighter than he was used to, but the man was moaning, gasping, not asking him to stop, so he didn’t, not until he was fully enmeshed with him. He was glad they no longer used condoms, that there was absolutely nothing separating them at this moment. He took a beat of silent enjoyment, just standing there, body thrumming with pleasure, with desire for more. Charles wasn’t as patient--in a second he elbowed Erik into movement.

It was easy to reach a rhythm with Charles: at this point in their relationship he seemed to be able to anticipate Charles’ body in a way he’d never expected. Their movement together now seemed the movement of one body, which Erik reveled in. Just to coil his hips and feel Charles coil back in perfect harmony seemed a beautiful piece of art.

“Harder,” Charles groaned.

Erik reached forward, bracing himself against the shelves with one hand and gripping Charles’ hip with the other, pulling him closer and he thrusting harder. His reward was Charles’ mewling, gasping groans, the desperate tossing of his head, the absolutely gorgeous arch of his back.

“You’re beautiful like this,” he gasped into the man’s hair, putting his arm around Charles’ waist to pin him to his cock.

“Oh god, Erik--oh _god_ \-- _agh!_ ” The man cried out, a bit too loudly. At his own place he had to admit he enjoyed Charles being as vocal as possible, _wantonly_ loud even, but in the middle of the night in a storage room between two apartments, silence was a virtue. Even the sounds of their two bodies moving together, the tinkling of somebody’s cups stored on the shaking shelf, seemed too loud for midnight in this part of town. God, if someone came around now, shouting at them to cut the racket, interrupting them, Erik thought he might kill them.

He realized, much as he’d love for this to last forever, he was going to have to cut it short. Hopefully Charles didn’t dock him points for that.

Bending his knees, he changed angles, driving stright up into Charles, elliciting a shocked gasp, that mewling noise that told him Charles was, thankfully, right on the edge. He bit and sucked on the man’s shoulder as he took him, slipping his hand between the man’s legs and jerking him off with a practiced hand. With his other hand he weighed down Charles’ shoulder, fucking him hard.

Charles’ whole body was shaking now, trembling with the intensity of their love-making. His cries were getting louder, less controlled, to the point where Erik didn’t have a choice. Struggling for any motor control that wasn’t mindless at this point, he managed to reach up and clamp a hand over Charles’ mouth, muffling but not completely silencing him. In their relative absence, the clanging of the glasses became all the more pronounced, jouncing off one another at a truly berseker pace as Erik lost all the rest of his control, as Charles’ body tightened and spasmed around him, cum dousing his hand (and what he truly hoped was not someones valuables on the shelf down there).

It was all Erik could do to stay upright long enough to wring himself out inside the other man. Shaking, exhausted, damp with sweat and overheated, he allowed himself to slide bonelessly to the floor, taking Charles’ with him. He realized he hadn’t undressed through the whole of it, and was now burning up in his jeans and T-shirt, what with Charles, equally hot and sweaty, innequally clothed, draped over his heaving chest.

Overlying his pleasurable discomfort, his tingling after-shocks, his utter destruction, was triumph. That had been wonderful. No way Charles wasn’t cured after that. He’d sleep for days and when he did wake up he’d be back to his sunshine self. What ever was wrong with him, it couldn’t survive a thrashing like that.

“That was great. Hop up, let’s do it again,” the man gasped, and Erik, once again, clenched his hand over the man’s mouth.

“Ugh, wipe it off first!” Charles laughed, wiping his face on Erik’s shirt.

Erik was still too dead for conversation. He practiced his recovery breathing and carded through Charles’ hair, making sure to use his clean hand.

He might have dozed off for a second, waking only when Charles got off him enough to pull his pants up.

“Gets cold fast,” the man murmured. Rubbing his face, Erik forced himself to sit up as well.

“Let’s go take a shower.”

“Together?” the man asked, arching one eyebrow. Erik wavered nervously, but not for long and not intensely--he was still too post-orgasmic to stress about his mother catching them.

“Yeah,” he said, kissing the man’s shoulder on its bitten-red mark with a smile. He wondered if it’d bruise.      

* * *

 

It was perfectly tame. Both of them were too drained (literally) to do anything more than very sleepily rub shampoo into and out of each other’s hair. Even once they were cleaned up, they just held each other under the warm spray until the hot water started to run out.

“Come sleep with me,” Charles mumbled as Erik pulled his pajama top over damp brunet locks and straightened his collar.

“Paris,” Erik replied. Half-awake himself, Erik kissed the man’s forehead and pushed him off to bed despite sleepy protestations. He was asleep before he even collapsed fully onto the couch.

Touristing, making good with family-by-proxy, dealing with a crazy boyfriend, and healing said crazy with copious sexing, Erik had fucking _earned_ this sleep.

 


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait! So hard to sit indoors and write when there's such lovely weather to be had! Anyway, hope you enjoy (despite all the page breaks--not sure what happened there...). 
> 
> Thank you all so much for your kudos and reviews and your time. You make this such a rewarding pastime!

For once Erik woke up before his mother, or at least  _practically_ before her. The moment she shuffled out of her room in her heavy nightgown (straggling down past her slippered feet), Erik jumped up in an excess of exuberance better suited for a child on Christmas morning (he assumed). His excitement for today could no longer be contained by sleep. It had to be expressed in full consciousness. The Charles meeting his mother today would be like a whole new Charles; the vacation could really start now--it would be nothing but his Helligkeit boyfriend being as sunshiney as ever, all bubbles and rainbows, like  _normal_ . He wished he could somehow tell his mother, prepare her for Charles at his full wattage.

“Erik!” his mother yelped, clutching her chest with shock he had so alarmed her motherly sensibilities. “ _Where are your blankets? You could have caught your death!”_

That’s right, he realized: he’d passed out without even thinking about his blankets, without grabbing a pillow, even. It was a paltry realization in the wake of everything else.

“Oh Mama,” he waved her off, bouncing manically. “ _It’s warm enough in here as is. Now, come on, I’ll help you--what do you need help with? Breakfast? I’ll help with breakfast! Happy Hanukkah!_ ”

“ _Nein nein nein_!” she said hurriedly. “ _Stay out of the kitchen! That is...um...let’s go out to breakfast! We can celebrate a great Hanukkah together. I’ll put matzoh on and it’ll be all nice and ready when we get home tonight._ ”

“ _Perfekt_!” Erik cheered, as he would have no matter what she’d said. Today was a day for cheering. He was fully considering doing a victory lap around the block as the only way to expend some of this excess energy before it addled his mind (if it hadn’t already). “ _I’ll get Charles and we can go out!_ ”

While he usually loathed waking Charles, today he managed to muster actual excitement over it. He couldn’t wait to see the change his cock had wrought in the brunet. This was like a wonderful magic trick in which his sex transformed something confusing and terrible back into golden perfection.

His mirth stilled slightly when he opened Charles’ door and the lamp was on. How long had that been on? This was his mother’s electric bill he was talking about, after all. Nobody should be running up her electric bill. Oh well, he’d leave her some cash to make up for it. Well, some _extra_ cash, on top of what he had already planned to stuff around the house for her to find, hopefully months later once he was gone and impossible to repay.

Charles, illuminated in the wasteful light of the lamp, was far from his usual sprawl, propped up on his pillows instead, and it didn’t look very comfortable. His head was fallen back at a bad angle, mouth half-open. There was a pen loosely clutched in one hand, and the other was sprawled across a sheaf of scrawled-on essays, handwriting getting more and more illegible. Charles seemed to have fallen asleep in the middle of complaining about some student’s “lampshade slop”, or at least that’s what it looked like.  What had the man been thinking? Even on a good day Charles could handle about one minute of consciousness after sex, if that. And after last night with that A-plus lovemaking...how had he even stayed up long enough to get those papers out of his bag in the first place? If ‘lampshade slop’ was anything to go off of, none of it was going to be legible and he was just going to have to do it all over again later. What a waste.

With a shake of his head, Erik shut off the bright lamp. To his surprise, Charles jerked awake at the sound, jolting in bed. This from the man who had to set five alarms in the morning just to get to work. This from the man who had once slept through an earthquake that knocked a lamp onto him in bed. Erik was not even exaggerating that anecdote.

“Ugh, what are you doing?” the man groaned, spilling papers everywhere. “Gah, my neck!”

While Charles rolled into a miserable ball and stretched the crick in his neck with a slew of awful groans and cursing, Erik crawled in beside him under the covers, wrapping him up and clucking consolingly. He was confident ten minutes of good cuddling would surely make Charles forget any physical discomfort, and for once on this trip Erik had ten minutes of cuddling to spare. The door was shut, his mother would probably be a good hour getting herself and the matzoh ready, and he seemed to still be able to physically _feel_ how well he’d fucked the man last night. Wriggling with happiness, he squeezed his boyfriend tighter and kissed the back of his neck just above the collar of his pajamas, snuggling in there and inhaling the marvelous sleepy scent of him. Today was going to be the best day; he couldn’t wait. This must be what Charles felt like every morning: all excitement and good cheer. Erik thought it might be a bit exhausting after too long, but his constitution could handle it for a couple days or so, if it came to that.

“Stop it, you’re squeezing me to death,” Charles wheezed. Erik let up and expended his superfluous happiness by kissing all over Charles’ neck and jaw. Charles just buried his face in pillows and grumbled, “You’re _such_ a morning person. How did I ever end up with someone with this much energy before 8AM?”

“Come on, it’s better to have this much energy for an hour before noon rather than all day long like you,” Erik grinned, slipping his hands up his boyfriend’s shirt. “Let’s get dressed. We’ve got synagogue today, we’re going out for breakfast, my mom is making matzoh, and everything is beautiful!. Happy Hanukkah, darling!”

The man just snuggled deeper into the covers and huffed something Erik didn’t catch. In a second Charles poked his head back out, rubbing his eyes and mumbling: “You guys go ahead. I don’t feel very well. I think I’m coming down with something.” Here he gave a weak, sickly sounding cough.

“What, are you serious?” Erik balked, sitting up on his elbow and turning the man over. He did look sort of sickly, wane and lackluster as opposed to his normal _high_ luster. “Are you really sick? What’s wrong? Do you have a fever? It was too cold in that closet, and too much exertion--damn it, we never should have done that!” Erik had never seen Charles sick. Well, sure, a light cold here and there, just a sore throat from lectures and mild things like that, but never really _actually sick_ \--what was he supposed to do? Hot soup, hot soup was important somehow, wasn’t it? He should stay with him, take care of him, he couldn’t go to synagogue now, that was for sure.

“I’ll make you tea. And...and soup--I can figure out how to make soup. Should I get you something? What do you need? Cough? Fever? Headache meds? I’ll go raid Irena’s room, she’s bound to have everything. Come here, let me feel your head--are you warm? I’ll get a thermometer; where do you get a thermometer?”

“Nevermind!” Charles cried, squirming under him where Erik was trying to get a feel for his temperature. “Forget it, nevermind! I’m not sick!”

“What the hell are you talking about? You’re _not_ sick?”

“No,” Charles huffed, pushing the covers off him and climbing over Erik and out of bed. “It’s just a headache. I’m fine.”

“Should I...I’ll get you some headache medicine, okay?”

“Yeah, alright,” the man mumbled, changing into one of Erik’s sweaters, too big for him. And that’s when it hit, driving into Erik like an icicle.

_Charles was not fixed._

Charles was still acting weird. He had stayed awake after sex last night, and he never stayed awake after sex. He woke up without someone shaking him for five whole minutes. He never woke up without someone shaking him for five whole minutes. He was grumpy even in the face of Erik’s affectionate good cheer. He was never grumpy, _period_. Erik had not been able to exorcise his demons, whatever they were. He was going to have to fuck him all over again.

“Hey, come here,” Erik said, and, completely against precedent, Charles’ shoulders _slumped_ when he said this.

“What?” the man asked, shuffling over, not looking him in the eye. Erik pulled him down, kissing him and Charles let himself be kissed, but Erik had to stop almost immediately. It was too much like kissing a stranger, an alien creature who just happened to look exactly like Charles. It was the most horrific thing Erik had ever experienced--it was Charles’ lips, Charles’ body, but not Charles.

The man, when he pulled back, was actually _blushing_ , apparently just as startled by this other-wordly experience as he was.

“I’m just tired,” the man argued, before Erik had even said anything to argue against. “It’s just the jet lag and...and then walking around sightseeing so much. You were right--I should have rested. I just need some rest, that’s all.”

God, it really was bad: Charles was telling him he was right.

Seeming to realize Erik was not being sucked into his ineffectual narrative, Charles decided to make a run for it.

“I’m going to find some ibuprofen. I’ll feel better then. Top notch. Okay, then. See you later.”

With that bit of awkwardness, Charles bolted, still just in his sweater and pajama pants.

Despite the covers still half-covering him, Erik felt chilled through. It hadn’t worked. Nothing had worked. He realized Charles must be feeling the same way: the brunet had tried to talk to Raven, to Moira, with no success. It had even really been _his_ idea to fuck him back to normal with all that business about the club--and even that hadn’t worked. Charles must be as much at the end of his rope as Erik was, and _still_ the man hadn’t even given him so much as a hint as to what was wrong. As with Charles’ mother, his childhood, his step-family, Erik had yet again hit the brick wall of what Charles was willing to share with him. But at least with those previous topics he had had Raven or Moira or Logan filling in the gaps. For once Erik felt how all alone he was against Charles’ pathological secrecy. And last night's confidence in sussing out the route around it was feeling seriously curtailed just about now.

* * *

 

Erik had woken up that morning in a paroxysm of good cheer, fully expecting Charles to be a shining beacon of charm that day, and despite his withered hopes, that’s exactly what Charles was. Refusing to be so easily fooled, Erik watched suspiciously through breakfast as Charles beamed and laughed and did his absolute best to make the whole restaurant fall in love with him. Against all previous history, Erik was the only one not buying it.

He knew Charles too well, now. He saw the strain at the corners of his mouth, could tell that the smile plastered on his face did not fully reach his manically shining eyes. Seated just beside the man, he could witness the constant fidgeting, the bouncing leg, the drumming fingers. Charles did not normally fidget. When excited he did have an uncontrollable wriggling tendency, but that was not the same.

“Quit that,” Erik insisted, gripping his knee under the table, pinning it mid-bounce.

“I’m not doing anything!” Charles yelped, gripping the table to stop fidgeting immediately. He managed for about five seconds before jumping to his feet.

“Don’t mind me!” Charles said. “I’m going to run to that pharmacy we passed on the way. Get some painkillers--rotten headache. You guys finish up, I’ll meet you at the temple!”

“ _Pharmacy_?” Irena questioned immediately, looking up from her food like a dog at the sudden appearance of a tennis ball. “ _Did he say pharmacy? I’m going too. I’m sure that waiter sneezed in my food--what a filthy little lout he is. We are never coming back here, Edie._ ”

“I’ll come with you,” Erik insisted. “You don’t know the way.”

“Don’t be silly, it’s just around the corner!” Charles laughed, but the hardness in his eyes gave a more serious rebuttal. “Stay and finish with your family, I’ll see you soon.”

“We’ll all go,” Erik said, but Charles and Irena were already walking off. Charles didn’t seem excited that Irena was going with him, once he realized, but he apparently decided that that wasn’t worth fighting. Then why was it worth it to fight Erik? Why was Irena a more acceptable partner than he was? Once they were out the door, his mother reached across the table to pat his hand.

“ _Are you okay, Kleiner? You hardly touched your breakfast. Charles either. I hope you two aren’t coming down with something...I knew you shouldn’t have slept with no blankets--what were you thinking?_ ”

Erik realized his mother was right. Not about the blankets, that was silly: Charles had ordered quiche but had only cut it up, not really eating any of it. Erik’s own meager appetite was notorious, but he had never seen this from Charles before. He badly wanted to go home and add it to his list of symptoms. Not that that had really helped him before. No list was going to solve this. He wasn’t sure what was.

Erik fought his mother to pay the tab, won, and they headed for synagogue with time to spare, running into Irena along the way. _Just_ Irena.

“ _Wo ist Charles?_ ” Erik balked.

“ _Who_?” the woman sniffed, bundling herself tighter. “ _It’s freezing. Edie, let’s take a cab. I can’t walk all to synagogue--you know I have bad knees. Not to mention my fallen arches._ ”

“God damn it,” Erik growled, and pushed past her back to the pharmacy.

“ _Don’t curse!_ ” Edie called after him.

The pharmacy was empty except for a scrawny teen behind the counter. No Charles. How was that possible?

“ _You_!” he growled, pointing at the kid. “ _Where’s the brunet?_ ”

“ _Excuse me?_ ” the teen asked, looking around in fear.

Damn, Erik realized he was going to have to be more specific. Suppressing his mounting annoyance enough to speak, he growled: “ _A brown-haired man just came in here with a tall stork-looking woman. Where--_ ”

“ _Oh, Frau Schwarzseher_?”

“ _Ja_ ,” said Erik, gripping his hands into fists.

“ _She’s a great customer. Comes in all the time. Completely off her rocker, of course, but--Hey, you’re not a friend of hers, are you?_ ”

“ ** _Where did the guy go?_** ” Erik snarled, about ready to drag the kid over the counter and start shaking till the right answer came out.

“ _There wasn’t a guy_ ,” the kid said. “ _Frau Schwarzseher came in alone. Like always._ ”

It was pointless to ask if the kid was sure--he was obviously dumb ,but even he couldn’t be so dumb as to miss an entire second person in the shop. Pulling his hair, Erik turned and walked out. Where the hell could the man be? And why the hell would he have pulled this stunt? Saying he was going to the pharmacy and then skipping out--to do what? Erik had the panicky sensation that he’d run back to the house to find Charles’ things gone and a note saying the man was off to Paris early: “Just wanted to get a jump start on my French tourism! See you at the end of the week. Much love from the city of love. Charles.” It would be just like him to want to avoid a conversation so badly as to actually skip town.

Erik wasn’t sure what to do but fume angrily and walk back to his mother and check every blind alley along the way for his wayward boyfriend, sure he’d find him tiptoeing through the frost dressed all in black, or camo gear, with a surreptitious backpack and a train ticket. He wasn’t expecting to actually find him. And he certainly wasn’t expecting to find him _walking out of a tobacco shop with a pack of cigarettes._

“ _What the fuck is this?!_ ” he growled, making Charles jump about a foot in the air. “You smoke now?!”

“It’s not for me!” Charles balked immediately, looking around desperately. He quickly ran over to some guy checking his phone on the corner and shoved the cigarettes at him. The man was much too confused for this to have been a pre-arranged agreement.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Erik questioned gruffly when Charles got back, blushing up to his ears.

“I was just getting into the Hanukkah spirit!”

“ _With cigarettes?!_ ”

Charles shrugged, trying to be flippant, and went to walk past him but Erik grabbed his arm.

“What the hell is going on, Charles?”

“Would you come on? We’re going to be late for service.”

What else could he do? With his mother waiting for him on a frozen German sidewalk, how could he now start the hours-long process of demanding Charles answer him seriously?

* * *

 

The man was quiet the whole way back, and Erik’s browbeating didn’t seem to make a difference to him. Although he enumerated to the brunet how weird he was being and all the ways in which he was apparently going insane, Charles didn’t argue with him, which was of course just another way in which he was acting like a very poorly reconnaissanced version of himself.

“Is the FBI trying to get close to me by sending in a very bad undercover agent with your face? Is that what’s happening? And they are just so short on time they couldn’t research the slightest thing about you? Like the fact that you _don’t smoke_?”

But Charles didn’t rise to the bait, and didn’t even do that thing where he stuck his nose up in the air like an offended cat to let him know that he _purposefully_ wasn’t taking the bait. It was like Charles couldn’t even hear him. In any case, Erik had to shut up about it as they reunited with his mother.

“ _What’s wrong?_ ” Edie questioned, glancing between the two of them as she rubbed her hands for warmth. They could not have made a very cheerful tableau.

“ _Nothing. Come on, let’s get inside where it’s warm_ ,” Erik said, and they started up towards the synagogue, his mother holding his arm, Charles walking ahead, out of reach.

“ _You go ahead, Mama,_ ” Erik said, ushering her into the building, holding Charles back. “ _Get some good seats. We’ll just be a minute.”_

“ _Don’t be too long,_ ” Edie suggested, eyeing them anxiously. Any more of this and she’d know something was up. He had to be careful.

“What is it?” Charles questioned, arms crossed over his chest, obviously expecting a battle. He uncrossed them a bit bashfully when Erik pulled their yarmulkes from his pocket.

“This was my dad’s,” Erik explained, brushing the ancient blue velvet. Charles looked up at him, surprised, and seemed appropriately affected as Erik pinned it to his hair before moving on to his own.

“Here, let me,” Charles offered, and Erik bent down a little for Charles to do the same for him, the man’s bare fingers soft and gentle in his hair. They moved to his cheeks, holding him still while Charles kissed him, before embracing him. It felt nice just to warm himself in the other man’s arms, nose pressed close in a mix of sweet-smelling hair and the man’s soft down jacket. He felt immediately bad about telling him he was a poorly trained FBI impostor. He’d called the man an alien, too. A badly-acted pod person. Charles never did that when they argued, never resorted to name-calling and sarcasm. Although Erik could have come up with much worse, he felt bad now about being able to come up with anything at all.

“I really love you,” Erik murmured, attempting to make up for his previous cattiness. “Whatever this is, I still really really love you.”

Charles hugged him tighter, almost desperately. “I really really appreciate that,” the man murmured back.

* * *

 

Charles took a deep breath before they went indoors, trudging up the remaining stone steps as if they led to a gallows rather than a synagogue. But the dread seemed to fall away from him when they entered the main hall.

“It’s segregated!” the man gasped, looking inside at the assembly, at Edie waving at them from the women’s area.

“Well, yeah.” It was a pretty orthodox congregation, after all.

“Ha!” Charles squeaked with happiness and Erik stared, incapable of understanding as Charles led them eagerly to their seats, apparently finding his second wind, smiling and introducing himself to his pew partners, looking everything over with that bird-like tendency again. He suddenly had energy to ask about the sorts of intricate details Erik was used to rolling his eyes over: how old was the synagogue? (Old.) Had Erik had his bar mitzvah here? (No, he’d been in Ireland by then.) Why didn’t Erik do this every week, this was awesome. (Because he wasn’t religious, and a job and a boyfriend was enough socializing to last him the rest of his life.)

“My mom goes every week. Multiple times a week, actually.”

“Hm,” was all Charles said, before striking up a conversation with the man on the other side of him. The guy didn’t know any English but his son did, and that was all Charles needed. They had a translated and by all accounts hilarious conversation until the rabbi came up and all went silent, Charles gripping Erik’s hand and beaming at him in anticipation, all _Helligkeit_ excitement. Erik, meanwhile, could barely focus on the ceremony. What the hell was going on with Charles? And why was he absolutely _refusing_ to tell Erik about it?

He had been trying everything he could to get Charles just like this: smiling, friendly, energetic, the usual version of himself that Erik had never realized he was taking for granted. Nothing had worked. Now suddenly they walk into synagogue and his wish was granted, but it only threw the recent madness into even starker relief. Erik could muster no excitement, only distrust: how long could this last? When would Charles slip back into whatever was bothering him? Into whatever he couldn’t, _wouldn’t_ tell Erik?

They shared everything; Erik had told Charles things he had never told another soul on earth, and although Charles did have a history of being undeniably secretive, it had never seemed as bad as this. Was that because before there had always been Raven and the crew to leak at least portions of his secrets behind his back? Erik had never felt this shut out before. He wanted to share his life with this man, wanted to share his _home_ with him--could he do that with this level of insularity, with Charles always picking bits and pieces of himself to keep apart?

Charles squeezed his hand, beamed at him, and Erik struggled to smile back.

 


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've got most of the ending written so hopefully this goes a bit faster now! Thanks all of you for sticking this out :D

Charles’ excitement buoyed him even beyond synagogue. When Edie and Irena went home to get warm and keep an eye on the matzoh, he and Charles went to the grocery store for latke ingredients and the man was all charming grace with the cashier, the produce girl, the cheesemonger. There was a hilarious moment and a funnier picture in which golden-haired Sophie-the-shop-girl shared her Rapunzel-like hair with Charles and he ended up looking for all the world like a conjoined blonde. While Erik picked out kosher sausage Charles rested his head on his shoulder and rubbed soft circles into his spine under his jacket in that easy sort of affection that felt like home. Erik liked it, _loved_ it, but didn’t trust it, not all the way to his bones, not like normal.

“Where to now?” the man asked as they exited the store, and Erik said “Home” and felt vindicated when Charles’ oddities cropped back up enough for the man to stop in his tracks and balk, “What? Why? Already?”.

“Yes already: we’ve got a lot to do. We’ll make up some latkes, maybe cookies, watch a movie, play cards. My mom’s a great poker player. Do _not_ bet money, by the way; she will kick your ass.”

Charles was silent, mulling this over. “Let’s go get wine. The Christmas market isn’t far from here.”

“Are you kidding?! It’s miles from here! We’d have to take the tram and everything.”

“So? The tram’s fast. We’ll be back in no time.”

“Charles,” he argued. “The grocery store is right there: just go back inside and get some wine if you want wine.”

“It’s not the same! Come on, we’ll be back well before sundown, anyway.”

“This is an all day affair, my little gentile. On a related note: do you know how to play bridge?” With this distraction, he put his arm around the man’s shoulders, dragging him towards home, grudgingly as the man seemed to follow suit.

“I don’t even think my _grandfather_ knew how to play bridge,” Charles grumbled.

“Well, don’t worry. I’ll teach you,” Erik said magnanimously, kissing the man’s hair.

He practically expected it when Charles, having gone along with him this whole way without another word of dissent, stopped suddenly not a foot from his mother’s front door.

“You know,” the brunet said, as Erik gathered his spare key. “I think I will go get that wine. Here, I’ll be right back.” Charles passed him his grocery bag, but instead of taking it Erik took the man, pushing him up against the door and pinning him with his hips.

“I’ll give you one big wet kiss if you never mention that damned wine ever again.”

“Just one?” Charles teased, and smiled at him for the split second before the door opened and he tumbled through, falling directly onto his mother. Edie had heard the thump of Charles hitting the door and thought Erik was knocking to be let in. Such was his life these days.

There was a lot of yelping and scrabbling but no one was injured (except Irena’s poor nerves, which were practically their own personage), and they could laugh about it once everyone had righted themselves (Irena had to take a sedative and lie down, which was to everyone’s benefit). They unloaded the groceries and Erik tried to get into the matzoh but his mother flapped him off shouting about how it wasn’t ready and why didn’t he start shredding potatoes if he was going to take up all this space in her kitchen, and it was a minute before he realized that Charles had sneaked away.

* * *

 

“Which present do you want to give Mom tonight?” Erik questioned, laying out the eight wrapped presents Charles had packed. He had explained ages ago that presents weren’t really a thing usually, at least not for adults, but this was weeks ago, back when Charles was still his normal adorable self, and the man had absolutely insisted they get his mother “a little something”.

“This could be our only Hanukkah together for years, possibly! There’s nothing wrong with going a little overboard!” the man had insisted, but Erik still hadn’t let him buy his mother a car. Stark contrast to now.

“Whatever you want,” Charles shrugged, hardy looking up from his phone.

“How about this one?” Erik questioned, passing over the box Charles had lovingly folded in gold and white paper with a bright blue bow not a week ago. Charles had been slaving for weeks on this gift, and he had forced Erik to slave alongside him, but even he had to admit this gift was going to blow his mother’s mind.

Edie had requested an American cookbook (now that her son was dating an American she had an absolute determination to be able to make any American meal that might be requested), but Charles had scoffed at something so paltry, and insisted that they _make_ her a cookbook. He picked out some tried and true recipes, bought a nice camera, and he and Erik had worked their way through each one, taking lots of pictures and taking lots of breaks for bandaids, aloe, and the fire department.

Erik’s job, besides working the fire extinguisher and sporting a fireman’s uniform for the rest of their recipes (and their bedroom), had been to write out the recipes and photo captions in German exactly as Charles dictated (and he was going to double check it with the German professor on campus, so Erik better not try anything fishy). Erik had a full pack of tissues on hand because this cheesy gift was going to bring the waterworks out in full force, he had no doubt. Which just underscored the sort of darling saint the man had been, just a matter of days ago. It boggled the mind, and made Erik realize how seriously sick Charles must be.

Whether it was missing Raven, or tourism-induced insanity or some sort of sudden-onset brain disease, Erik didn’t know, and with his mother on top of them at all times it was proving difficult to find out. He wasn’t going to have any free time until she went to bed, and he fully planned on pinning Charles down (literally, if necessary) until he gave up whatever secret was killing him so slowly but surely. If Charles survived that long.

“You feeling okay?” he questioned, feeling the man’s head. Charles had said that morning that he wasn’t actually getting sick, but Erik wondered if that were true: the man looked grayed out, tired, with bags under his eyes.

“Yeah,” the man muttered, rubbing his face. “I’m just tired.”

“You should have used all that time hiding in your room to take a nap,” Erik suggested. Charles’ eyes flashed just enough to show his disapproval and then dissipated for lack of energy.

“I wasn’t hiding,” the man grumbled, plugging his phone in. “I was just trying to reach Raven. What’s wrong with that?”

Erik was about to tell him _exactly_ what was wrong with that when Edie knocked on the door and put an end to that idea. Once again, Charles had escaped decisive action, but he couldn’t get this lucky forever.

* * *

 

Since Erik was the guest, his mother ‘let’ him say the prayers and light the menorah, although he’d much rather not. He’d been dreading it all day: it had been _years_ since he’d said any of the religious blessings. It wasn’t like Charles was going to know the difference, or that his mother would care if he did something wrong, but he still wished his mom would at least do the first night’s to refresh his memory. Especially since the first night meant one extra blessing to bestow, and damn if he could remember that one.  

In truth, though, he needn’t have worried. He’d apparently done this enough in Hebrew school for it to be saved permanently to his tongue’s muscle memory, and anyway Edie was clapping and crying and telling him what a beautiful job he’d done before he’d even finished, and even Charles had roused himself enough to kiss Erik’s cheek approvingly.

“Is it inappropriate to tell you how sexy I find your Hebrew skills?”

“Do _not_ ask me to sing the Haneirot Halalu while I fuck you,” Erik growled (mostly because he wasn’t sure he would be able to say no, even though it would be the most blasphemous thing he had done in a while). His mother unfortunately caught that and screeched and beat him for saying ‘fuck’, and he had to insert Charles between them to save himself from further injury.

“Can we just open the freaking presents already?” he demanded, rubbing his sore ass.

“I agree. I don’t think I could watch someone else spank you for much longer without getting in on that action,” Charles winked, somehow managing to squeeze Erik’s ass without his mother seeing. Erik wondered how much practice the man had had at discreetly being a harlot around mothers, because he certainly seemed too adept at it to be a novice.

They sat down on the couch, the three of them, with Charles in the middle, and Edie called Irena out but she begged off, asking that her presents to be brought to her in bed, along with some more matzoh, some of the latkes they’d made earlier, oh and some orange juice, that would be fantastic. Erik was disgusted first off that the woman even thought she was getting any presents (what was she, five?), and secondly that Edie had indeed gotten her “just a little thing” that looked too big for anything Irena could have deserved.

When they were settled in again Charles had somehow finagled Erik into the middle seat, which he didn’t exactly mind since it put his two favorite people in the whole world on either side of him, but did made him raise an eyebrow that Charles pretended not to notice. His mother was too much splitting at the seams with excitement to sense anything was amiss, apparently.  

“ _Have Charles go first!_ ” she cried, shaking Erik’s arm like a dog with a stuffed animal.

“ _He’ll never do it,_ ” Erik scoffed. Charles was the type that refused to eat until everyone at the table got their food, and he had once stood at a door for two whole minutes holding it open for an influx of strangers. “ _It’d be like trying to get **you** to go first, and we both know how much like pulling teeth that is.”_

Edie managed to swipe the both of them with her affectionate gaze before stroking Erik’s sweater with amusement. “ _Alright, kleiner. **You** go first then._”

When Erik went to take his present from the coffee table Charles yanked his arm back as if he were trying to shoplift.

“Erik! Shouldn’t you let your...let her go first?”

“She told _me_ to go first!” he wailed. “Besides, if she goes first Hanukkah will be over by time she stops crying.”

Charles eyed him distrustfully but sat back, allowing him to search out his present from his mother.

He could tell as soon as he picked it up that it was clothes, but he didn’t mind that: his mother made amazing clothes.

Sure enough he plucked out a beautiful pair of navy blue slacks and a pale gray-blue dress shirt. And a pair of suspenders.

Edie saw him staring at them and smiled ecstatically. “ _I couldn’t make those but you seem to love suspenders so much lately that I thought I’d get you a pair! For all you like them you don’t own any--I thought for sure you’d know what I was up to when I asked you last month._ ”

Erik struggled to swallow, unwilling to explain to his mother that the reason he had such a thing for suspenders was because he had discovered how absolutely cock-achingly gorgeous Charles looked taking them off.

“Very nice present,” the man murmured directly into his ear, reaching over closer than he needed to in order to finger the blue straps provocatively.

“Save it for Paris,” he growled and with a slight huff Charles sat back again, crossing his arms.

Erik meanwhile turned to his mother and flattered her in his own way, accusing her of spending weeks making something so beautiful, or spending too much money on such fine fabric. She was overjoyed with his antagonistic praise and she kissed his cheeks happily, hugging him.

“ _Charles’ turn!_ ” she then cheered, reaching across Erik’s lap to pat the man on the knee. Charles slipped out from under the touch to put Erik’s clothes on the reading chair before searching out his present.

“That’s from me,” Erik corrected when Charles did pick one out.

“I know, I want to open your present,” the Brit replied as he sat back down. Erik pushed the gift out of his hands and passed his mother’s over instead.

“Trust me, if you don’t open hers now she’s going to have an aneurysm.”

He tried to figure out why Charles’ mouth twisted like that, but it disappeared too quickly to be sure of and the brunet was opening his present. Erik hadn’t been trusted enough to know ahead of time what it actually was, but his mother had asked for Charles’ dimensions a while back, so he rather assumed it was a shirt or something.

Really, he wasn’t far off, he saw, when Charles pushed the wrapping paper aside to stare at his new sweater. It was deeply, darkly blue, but somehow still almost luminously bright, and it looked extremely soft. The collar buttoned along the side with cute little wooden buttons. There was a stripe of red at the hem and cuffs, but the real masterpiece was the broad band going around the shoulders in cream and outlined in red that held a pattern of red hearts.

It was gorgeous, and dorky, and everything Charles loved and Erik wasn’t surprised to see the man’s hands shaking slightly as he barely touched the collar, the buttons, the hearts. If someone could magically turn Charles himself into a sweater, it would probably come out exactly like this.

“Where on earth did she find this?” the man said thickly and Erik sat back, smiling hugely and watching him overdose on affection. Just let him _try_ to keep being crazy in the face of _that._ He glanced at his mother and she seemed about thrilled out of her mind at the reception of her gift, hands clasped against one cheek and eyes shining and smile nearly painful, he was sure.

“She made it. She’s amazing with a pair of knitting needles,” he gloated.

Charles turned to stare at him, eyes bright and wet.

“She--she _made_ this?” he choked out. Erik couldn’t diminish his grin enough to speak, just nodded.

His grin faded quickly enough, though, when his boyfriend coughed miserably and jumped up from the couch, shoving his gift onto Erik and sprinting for the bathroom.

Erik and Edie shared identical shocked looks.

“ _Erik_!” Edie finally recovered from her surprise to say. “ _What did you say to him?!_ ”

“ _Mama, nichts! I just said that you knitted his sweater!_ ”

“ _Well you must have said something! Something happened!_ ”

Erik agreed, and he was tired of tiptoeing around what. He brought his mother to the kitchen and told her to make them hot chocolate while he got the bottom of this, grabbing a knife.

The bathroom hadn’t been updated since he was a child, and he knew from experience that a well-placed knife could trip the lock faster than you could say “ _Erik, nein!_ ”

So with a practiced move ingrained into his muscle memory he shoved forward the blade to slide the latch up and threw open the door. Then promptly shoved it shut behind him before his mother could catch his boyfriend sobbing in the bathroom on Hanukkah after opening her present.

“Holy fuck, Charles! What the hell’s going on!?” he yelped, kneeling in front of the man, knife clattering to the floor. Charles was sitting almost doubled over on the edge of the bathtub, sobbing painfully but c _ompletely silently_ into his handkerchief. The brunet didn’t answer, _couldn’t_ answer, couldn’t even manage to react much to Erik’s surprise entry, although Erik was sure that after days giving him him the slip in more and more outlandish ways, this tete-a-tete was one of the last things Charles wanted.

The man’s eyes were swimming and his cheeks were sopping and splotchy red and he looked as if he were about to choke to death on his tears but _damn it he would **not** make a noise_. Erik, meanwhile, felt as if his heart was going to burst right out of his chest this sight ruined him so much and he had expected it so little.

“Ah--I’m so-so-sorry,” Charles gasped, hyperventilating  to the point that he could hardly speak. Erik was seriously worried the man was going to crack a rib trying to compress these wracking sobs, or else choke to death.

“It’s okay, let it out,” Erik murmured, putting his arms around the smaller man and holding him to his chest. Charles shook heavily in his arms but decidedly did _not_ let it out, pressing his mouth to Erik’s shoulder to further silence himself, which was more disconcerting than anything. Erik had seen Charles cry before, of course. He cried every single time one of those damned ASPCA commercials came on, or any of those videos with soldiers surprising family members or pets. But that was...well, Emma would disagree with him, but that was _normal_ crying. It was a hiccuping sort of adorable, possibly even _healthy_ crying (if there were such a thing) that did not make Erik’s heart dry up in his chest like this.

“Charles what is it? What’s wrong?” he begged to know. The man took in deep controlled breaths and pulled back, eyes far away as he focused on pulling himself together, locking himself down. Wiping away tears, the man slowly got himself to a point where he could mostly speak.

“I’m sorry,” he gasped, forcing his breathing under control with an iron will that it was terrifying to witness. Erik had seen this before, but only when Charles had had to shut down all personal emotions in order to be strong for someone else. Who was he trying to be strong for now? “I’m sorry. I just suddenly remembered I had to call Raven, so I called her, but she didn’t answer and I guess I was just upset. I’m just tired and I was upset. I’m fine now. Please, let’s get back to the festivities. Your mo- _mother_ must be worried.”

More deep breathing had to get him back under control after a performance like that, and Erik watched in a horrified sort of awe. For how emotional Charles could be, sometimes he seemed even more stony than Erik. If he weren’t so sickened, he’d film it for Emma as proof that Charles was stronger than it was reasonable for him to be. Erik himself rarely felt any need not to vent any emotion that came his way, waving his anger, ire, and vitriol like a partisan flag at anyone who came near him. What Charles was doing right now, like closing a floodgate with one’s bare hands, was both impressive and something Erik had to put an end to right away. It was cruel, but it had to be done. So long as he was there to keep the man from drowning he thought he could possibly get away with considering it ethical.

“You called Raven?” he asked steadily. Charles dried the last of his tears, knuckles whiter than they should be, and struggled to nod.

“Yes,” the man murmured thinly. He was trying to keep himself from trembling, was mostly succeeding at this point. It hurt Erik that he was going to have to put a stop to that.

“Where’s your cellphone?”

Charles stopped and looked up at him, staring wide with those wet blue eyes rimmed red.

“My phone?” he asked distractedly. Erik nodded. “My phone...it’s...” Charles scoped a weak hand to his pockets, but of course didn’t find it. While he usually had his phone on him at all times Erik happened to know for a fact that at this moment Charles’ fatigued forgetfulness had done him in.

“It’s in your bedroom,” Erik pointed out.

At a loss, too exhausted to come up with another lie so quickly on the spot, Charles’ staring eyes started filling up with tears again which about broke Erik’s heart and he took the smaller man up into his arms, caught him as he lost all the self-control he’d so painstakingly built up.

Although he knew this was necessary, that unfortunately did not mean he knew what to do now, and he was frankly horrified to see that even a year into dating, on the brink of asking the man to move in with him, he was still just as clueless as when he’d seen Charles cry for the very first time. He did the only things he could do: he held the man tightly and rocked him and murmured to him and when the man’s hitching breaths started to subside he pulled back and helped dry him off.

“What’s wrong, Charles? You can tell me, whatever it is,” he murmured.

The brunet eyed him painfully, took a deep breath, and said, “I’m pregnant.”

Erik already fell over, banging his elbow before he realized the man was joking.

“How can you joke after those waterworks?” Erik hissed, hitting him vengefully on the arm. The brunet gave a wet laugh and caught Erik’s arm, pulling him close enough to nuzzle a moment. Erik was almost sure it was purposeful distraction and did not give into it.

“The truth is ridiculous. Really, let’s just skip it.”

“Charles, I’m serious.”

“Oh it’s much too melodramatic to talk about now--I’ll tell you some other time,” Charles said, and tried to stand up but Erik wouldn’t let him.

“As if! You’ve been avoiding me for _days_. I forced my mother to make winter beverages in order to hold you while you _sobbed uncontrollably_ on the first night of Hanukkah--you can damn well tell me now,” Erik insisted and with that voice and with him blocking the door he figured Charles would give in quickly. Just went to show how much he still had left to learn about his boyfriend.

“Erik,” the man growled back, pushed so far to the brink that he actually did a halfway decent growl. “I haven’t slept in days; I’m sure your mother is worried enough about us sitting in here for the past twenty minutes as it is; it’s going to take every ounce of my strength to get through these next few hours; please, _please_ give me a break.”

Huffing, Erik grudgingly supposed Charles had a point. Still, he gripped the brunet’s arms and eyed him seriously.

“You have to promise me, Charles. No more avoiding this. We are going to discuss this. _Tonight._ Promise me.”

The man looked away, but Erik could see the gears turning behind those eyes, spinning to find a way out of this, some sort of loophole he could turn to his advantage. Erik gripped harder, making the brunet wince slightly.

“Charles, I mean it!”

“Okay, okay!” the man hissed, pushing him off. “I promise!”

“Alright then,” Erik nodded, appeased.

They stood, Charles rinsing the tears from his face in the sink with a practiced sort of hand that scared him. Shaking himself out, resetting his shoulders, the brunet went for the door but Erik stopped him. He looked a little pale, a bit red around the eyes, but Erik didn’t think anyone would be able to tell he’d just been sobbing his heart out. He wondered how many other times Charles had done this in his life; he was too good at it for this to be the first.

"Tonight,” Erik murmured, making his words sounds more like a promise than a threat.

"I'll try not to sob hysterically," Charles said with a wink, as if he _hadn’t_ just been sobbing hysterically.

"Hey," Erik said, stroking Charles’ soft brown hair and gazing into his eyes. "I'm strong enough to lean on, if you need to. I'm here for you. Whatever it is, I love you."

Charles’ flippancy slid away, and he hugged Erik softly as he said, “I know. I know you are. I love you, too.”

He smiled into his boyfriend’s dark hair as he caressed it, feeling as if he’d said at least one thing right in all this mess.

"Okay, then. Back to the party, _Heulsuse_ *."

Charles pulled back, eyeing him suspiciously. "Is that like some sort of crying reference?"

Erik just shrugged. "I don't know what you're talking about. Now wring out your handkerchief and let's go watch my mother cry as hard as you when she opens _her_ gift."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heulsuse = Crybaby


	13. Chapter 13

For once in his life Erik found himself in the position of lying to his mother, and it was especially sordid as he was doing it to protect his lover. He told her Charles wasn’t feeling well and it was probably jetlag or something he’d eaten (outside of the house, of course; he could not have her hanging herself for accidentally fake-poisoning his boyfriend). She immediately wanted to put him to bed, but Erik balked. He knew, even without actually being sick, that Charles would probably be benefited by such an early night, and he also knew that balking undermined his lie, but he balked anyway. Charles was well enough to finish opening presents, he’d go to bed right after, his mother shouldn’t worry, et cetera et cetera.

Their very first Hanukkah together had all been all but ruined, Erik could no longer deny that, but he wasn’t about to kill it off completely by having Charles miss the whole thing. Call it selfish, but he thought he’d earned some selfishness lately. He expected Charles to fight him and find a way to duck out regardless; instead, the man just grit his teeth and went along with the charade. He also, apparently, was intent in keeping up appearances. At least Charles wasn’t so far gone that he couldn’t appreciate that.

The man plastered a pained smile on his face and insisted he was fine, made a big show of requesting some warm milk saying that would put him to rights straight away, and forced himself to drink it, pretending to look fortified.

“Oh, yum! Yup, that did the trick! I feel so much better!” Charles cheered, looking as if he really might throw up instead of fake throw up.

“Let’s just open the rest of our presents _real quick_ then call it a night,” Erik suggested. A bit earlier than their usual late-night Hanukkah festivities, but Charles was obviously not going to survive this charade for long.  

It was Edie’s turn and she made him and Charles sit right up on either side of her, in perfect position to get their eardrums burst out when she discovered her very own lovingly hand-made cookbook/photo journal. After the screaming came the crying and then the vice-like embraces; the moment she recovered she had them walk her through every single photo of her new cookbook, ignoring the captions in order to hear the recap in person.

Charles had organized the book into different sections for entrees and desserts and such and had Erik help him cook one recipe from each section, complete with photographic proof of the process. The first page with introduction was a picture of them before any disasters had occurred, pristine in the matching aprons Moira had gotten them for Christmas last year (red and white checked with hearts and frilly lace--this was the only time Erik had ever worn his and was overjoyed when by time they got to the bread section he had managed to set it on fire) and grinning at the camera because they had yet to figure out what kind of trouble Charles had set them up for.

They had been under the woeful misapprehension until then that having Charles in the kitchen with him would prevent Erik from being too destructive. They now knew better. By the time they hit the entrees the fire department was already demanding Charles save them the time and expense and simply ban Erik from the kitchen. The Brit got drunk with the fire chief and agreed to keep Erik away from the oven in exchange for a worn-out uniform and dented helmet. It had taken them two days to drag themselves out of the bedroom long enough to finish the cookbook, now protected by well-used fire-proof clothing.

But Edie didn't need to know that.

She saw the pictures of them posing with a good-spirited fire-fighter next to the scorch mark on Charles' oven wall, and of Erik wielding the fire-extinguisher spitefully while Raven panicked with 911 on speed-dial in the background, of Erik regaled to vegetable slicer after that, and the many band-aids that in turn required.

On the last page was Erik with his fire-helmet and charred apron, along with an exhausted-looking Charles, and a note Charles had painstakingly written out himself in German.

_I hope you enjoyed our cooking lessons. The most important lesson I learned was to keep Erik out of the kitchen. I don't know how his home economics teacher survived, or the school for that matter! I'm very excited to visit you in December, and I know I'll love it and love you. I hope this book finds you very well, and that it makes you smile rather than fear for our lives. Thank you very much for giving birth to the love of my life._

_Yours with love,_

_Charles_

Edie smiled past all her crying and wrapped Charles up in a hug that he suffered through stiffly, looking off into the middle distance. Erik had seen that look before, when Logan had taken them on a run and said they could stop at the next light. Gasping for breath after a fast-paced five miles, Charles had looked at that light pole just like this.  

 _Just get through this last little bit,_ he imagined the man telling himself. _Almost done. Just a little longer._

Just as on that run, Erik’s heart was pounding in his chest. He was counting down until he could force Charles to tell him what was going on, but a part of him was already way ahead of that. A part of him had already guessed it, believed it completely, and was freaking out with abandon. It seemed too much, too much bad luck for a lifetime, for the same thing to be happening to him all over again. With a mother this amazing, how was it possible for him to have two completely different partners hate her?

With Magda it had made a certain kind of sense: Magda was a terrible human being, and terrible human beings were capable of having all sorts of terrible opinions. When Magda had hated his mother, complained that she babied Erik, that she was uncultured, that she was _just_ a housewife, it was just par for the course in terms of terrible things she said, did, and believed. Erik hadn’t really liked anything about Magda in the first place, so this had not been a crushing blow. He’d just realized he’d have to keep them apart forever, and that was okay because he liked being away from Magda just fine, so taking vacations without her was no hardship.

But Charles...

He loved Charles. Adored him. Charles was the man of his dreams.

But how could the man of his dreams _be_ the man of his dreams if he hated his mother? Erik had come here with the thought of asking Charles to move in with him, a huge step for Erik, to literally share his home with a person. After Magda he was sure he’d never have the urge to live with another person, ever. Charles was the one who had changed all that, changed so much in Erik’s life, and very nearly all for the better. Not just for the better but for the best. Although they had pretended earlier that Charles was the one with a bad stomach, it was Erik who thought he really might throw up, faced now with the thought that he might have to break up with the man.

Erik had _heard_ the term ‘deal breaker’, of course. Sean’s deal breaker was if a girl was taller than him, Alex’s was if she still seriously called her father “Daddy”. Angel would not date a man if he were unemployed, Janos would not date a man who made him pay his own way. But Erik had never run into this. He hardly met the qualifications for the enterprise, after all, since one would have to have a pretty loose definition of the phrase to say that Erik dated people at all. People fell into his life and were thrown back out of it, unless they, like Magda, decided to latch themselves on, for whatever reason. Charles was the first person he had ever held onto, and with all his strength. He had never imagined there’d be a day he would even think about letting go, it was never something Erik had planned for. For the year and more they’d been together he’d only been imagining and dreading the day Charles might decide to get rid of him.

The alternative left him sick and confused.

But what choice did he have? He understood the horrific meaning of ‘deal breaker’ now, as he never had before. Sweet as the deal was, perfect though it had always seemed, how was he supposed to accept it under these terms? If Erik were allowed only one deal breaker in his life, surely it had to be a partner hating the one other person in this whole world that he loved beyond all measure.

Did this mean they _had_ to break up?

Erik was immediately drenched in a cold sweat at the mere thought, felt as if he were going to be sick, or possibly die straight away. It shut down his runaway-train thoughts more than anything else could, bringing him to a dead stop. He couldn’t jump to conclusions like this. No matter how much evidence was mounting up, Erik had to refuse to believe it, had to wait for Charles’ explanation. Even though it was like waiting for the firing squad, keeping his mind carefully blank, struggling not to imagine the exact agony of the bullet hitting, if that’s what it was going to do.

He began to wish the shot never would come. Charles wanted to avoid the conversation, what if Erik let him? He could not show up tonight, pretend he fell asleep, skip it. They only had to get through another week. Maybe Charles _could_ go to Paris early. Maybe Erik never had to know...

But looking over at the man, gray and wane with _whatever_ it was that was eating him alive from inside, Erik knew he couldn’t let that happen. Charles needed him; he couldn’t let him down. He didn’t want to know, but, even more than that, he didn’t want Charles to suffer this secret alone.

After Edie calmed down, Charles opened his remaining present quickly (ornately embroidered handkerchiefs--seemed inappropriate at the moment), and then Erik opened his.

It had seemed ridiculous to wrap their presents, pack them all to Europe, then pack them all home again (using up dire souvenir space), so they had agreed to bring only nominal gifts. Erik had decided to bring the handkerchiefs because they were small and he’d thought they’d come in handy in the cold weather (not because he’d imagined Charles would be sobbing himself dry through their holiday). He’d saved the good stuff for when they got back home. He’d followed the rules. But he should have known Charles could not contain himself when it came to presents.

“Do you like it?” the man asked, touching his shoulder to wake him from his stunned paralysis.

Like it?

“ _I used to read this to you!”_ Edie gasped, scooting closer to read the cover. “ _Pu der Bar. Gott, I must have read this to you a million and a half times. That might be an understatement.”_ Erik had no doubt it _was_ an understatement, this had probably been the only book he had ever enjoyed as a child. His father had once gotten tired of it and tried to read him _Pippi Langstrumpf_ and Erik had thrown it out the window. He had had a single stuffed animal from infancy into an embarrassing point in his childhood and it was _Pu der Bar_. When Erik had absolutely destroyed it from years of sole use, Edie sewed him an exact replica.

This book, weathered, well-used, felt like holding his actual childhood in his hands.

“Open it,” Charles smiled, nudging him. And Erik did, tightening his mouth so he didn’t cry. It had been a very emotional week for him as well, and he wasn’t sure he could handle Charles’ overwhelming thoughtfulness on top of all that.

The brunet had turned the inside of the front cover into a picture frame, so that, opening his book, he was looking at the title page but also, opposite that, a picture of himself, smaller, cuter, _chubbier_ , ubiquitous stuffed bear in his lap, Edie and Jakob on either side of him on some outdoor, undersized bench, all scrunched together and beaming. Erik recognized the photo as one of his mother’s, and couldn’t imagine how Charles had gotten it except by asking his mother or else stealing it.  And since they’d wrapped these presents before flying out here, that only left having asked Edie _weeks_ ago.

Turning to Charles, he had a million things to say, and didn’t have words to say any of them. He just took the man in his arms and squeezed until he heard bones creak.

“You do like it?” Charles wheezed.

“I love it. I love you. I _love_ you.”

“ _My creative little son-in-law,”_ Edie keened, taking the book to look more closely. “ _I was wondering what he was going to do with that photo. How sweet!”_

It _was_ sweet, Erik thought. And what was more, it was a sign. He could never break up with someone so loving and thoughtful, with someone who did things for him and to him that no one in his whole life had ever done before. Deal breaker or no deal breaker, he didn’t care. With Charles there was no such thing.

Whatever this thing was with Charles, they were going to work it out, together. He was not going to throw in the towel at the first peek of trouble, even though it was a damned big peek.

_I’m strong enough for this. For him, I’m strong enough for anything._

 

* * *

 

He was feeling shaky but determined when his mother finally tucked them in and went off to bed herself. He gave it another few minutes, waiting for her to settle in, planning his silent escape. He had to be calm; he couldn’t react. For once he had to be the strong one for Charles. Charles needed his help and if helping him meant letting him fall apart again then he had to be there and be ready to pick up the pieces. It wasn’t going to be easy. He wasn’t at 100 percent either, after all. It was going to be just as hard for him to hear his one true love hated his mother as it must be for Charles to have those feelings in the first place. He was almost sure Charles had never hated anyone ever before, besides maybe Hitler or something exceptional like that; which made this feel even more unfair. How could the first person he hate be Erik’s mother?

No, he was doing it again.

 _Wait for it,_ he told himself again. He had to wait for the explanation, he had to give this the benefit of every doubt he had in himself. But how could he prepare himself for the worst if he didn’t let himself believe the worst was happening?

Erik yanked himself up off the couch, unable to lie there another moment. He couldn’t keep being shoved between two excruciating scenarios, between ignorance and his imagination. He had to know.

Silently, he stalked to Charles’ room, maneuvering through the dark, taking a deep breath before turning the doorknob. And staring in disbelief as it didn’t turn. He shook it again, the rattling seeming dangerously loud in the quiet of the night, unable to believe what was happening. It was fucking locked. Charles had _literally_ locked him out. Erik had fought his own personal misgivings, his own childish urge to ignore this problem, he had made the conscious decision to be an adult and face this, to help Charles, on _Charles’_ behalf. And the man locked him out. He was incensed almost as much as he was hurt.

What was he supposed to do? To knock, to keep rattling the knob, to break the door down, would only wake his mother. Determination rising, he turned to grab a knife. He wasn’t sure he could force this lock but he had to try; he couldn’t let the man get away with this. He had to save him from his own disgusting stubbornness.  

But before he’d even stepped away, the door squeaked open behind him and Charles was standing there in the weak light looking sheepish.

“Sorry,” the man murmured. “Old habits and all.”

Erik had expected himself to be angry; he _had_ been angry. He thought once he’d broken into the man’s room he’d hiss something about Charles being an absolute infant, or grossly craven. He found none of that clambered forth when actually given the opportunity. All he could feel, seeing Charles standing there in his boyish pajamas looking so chastised and wane, was affection, was a need to protect. He pulled the man tightly to his chest, holding him close, feeling Charles’ matching clutch, his heavy, uneven breaths.

"I’m sorry I ruined Hanukkah," the brunet said quietly, already on the verge of tears.

"You didn't ruin anything... Although I feel bad for buying you all those handkerchiefs now."

"Yes, that was rather tactless,” Charles sniffled with a laugh, pulling back. He moved to the desk chair, fiddling with his hands, preparing himself as Erik shut the door quietly behind him.

Erik struggled to keep things light, to hold on to their friendliness. "Hey, no one marked ‘copious crying’ on my trip itinerary. I just thought you’d like monogrammed handkerchiefs."

"I didn't know either. I was so looking forward to this whole vacation and now all I want to do is run off to Paris before your mother cottons on to my eccentric behavior...” He was silent for a moment, as if waiting for Erik to say something, but he didn’t know what to say, and the man continued grudgingly. “Erik...I--I hate it, I hate it but I think I need to go. I can go to Paris early. Or...I don’t know..."

Erik couldn’t contain himself now, kneeling down beside the man. "Why? Why don’t you like her? She already loves you _so much_."

Charles shifted awkwardly, eyes damp. Heart in his throat, all Erik could do was watch as the man tried to form words. Charles had not contradicted him.

“I _know._ That’s the problem. I want to--Erik, I’m so sorry-- _I want to_...” the man cried, looking so truly tortured that Erik’s heart couldn’t even harden against him, even as his worst fears were validated.

“Charles, what is it? There must be some reason. Do you think she babies me? Or--maybe she’s too old fashioned with the sewing and knitting and scrapbooking? Or too Jewish--because, Charles, she does _not_ expect you to keep kosher or go to synagogue or study the Torah or anything.”

“No, no, no,” Charles hiccuped, wiping his splotchy cheeks, cutting Erik off. He could have continued, but only because he’d heard the list from Magda so many times. “Of course not. She’s wonderful.”

This flummoxed Erik more than anything, and he said so: “If she’s so wonderful then why do you hate her?”

“I don’t hate her! That’s awful. I don’t hate anyone!” Charles gasped, hitting Erik hard on the shoulder. “Don’t even say such a thing!”

“Then what?” Erik winced, rubbing his sore arm.

Charles tightened the reins on himself, pulled himself back under control with nothing but a determined frown and painful willpower. When he spoke again Erik realized why it took the man longer pull himself in.

“I believe you know some of the...the seedier aspects of...with my...my mother...how she...well, she wasn’t...she--”

“She was a class-A bitch,” Erik supplied, managing to make Charles smile, if only at one corner of his mouth.

“Something like that,” the man agreed, and took a deep breath before he could continue, staring off into space in order to better pretend he was not willingly speaking about this. “Your mother is so sweet to me and so loving, and she doesn’t even know me--she only just even met me. How can your mother love me so much before she’s even gotten to know me when my own mother couldn’t love me after seventeen years of knowing me?”

The words seemed to reach the man even in the far-off space he’d tried to remove himself to, and Charles’ face crumpled immediately, the most pained expression, as if his heart were breaking, which made Erik’s heart break.

“Charles,” he murmured, kneeling up to take the brunet in his arms. “Charles, why didn’t you tell me? I could have helped you.” Erik had no idea _how_. But he could have tried. They could have tried together.

“How could I tell you? What, that I can’t be near your mother? That every time I see her I just see everything my mother wasn’t?” The man trembled in his arms, voice becoming more strained, less controlled. “I kept thinking I’d get over it. I’d recover from the initial shock and it’d get easier. I so wanted to be perfect, for her, for both of you. After Magda I wanted to make up for all of that and instead I’m putting you through it all over again. I’m Magda all over again. I’m Magda!”

Erik shook him as Charles collapsed into tears.

“Stop it!” he growled quietly. “Charles, you are _nothing_ like her! Don’t be ridiculous!”

Charles said something but Erik didn’t quite catch it. It sounded suspiciously like “Ha!” so he continued, struggling to be persuasive, persuasive enough to convince Charles of all people, who would undoubtedly win World’s Most Stubborn Man as soon as they invented the dubious award. He pushed the brunet’s bangs back, staring the man in his tear-bright eyes.

“You are not like Magda. I love you. You love me. You are capable of loving people. You are the opposite of Magda. That cookbook for my mom, the million thoughtful amazing things you do for me, for _everyone_ , on a daily basis--you practically made yourself sick beating yourself up over all of this, when Magda wouldn’t have given a shit, about who she despised and what they thought of it and you do nothing _but_ care. Don’t you ever put yourself in the same boat as Magda, do you hear me?”

“What does it matter?” Charles said morosely, looking away. “The end result is the same. What am I going to do? I can’t keep this up. I’m going insane. All I think, whenever I’m around your mother, is: how? How can she love me and my own mother hated me?”

“Charles, plenty of people love you! I love you, Raven loves you--it’s no surprise that people love you!”

The man just shook his head, wiping his eyes again. “It’s different with mothers.”

“What do you mean? Moira’s mom adores you! She’s always calling you her son or step-son or whatever.”

“Oh she likes me like a friend,” Charles huffed, waving him down. “She met me, we hit it off; I _wooed_ her, of _course_ she likes me. But your mum...She liked me instantaneously, before she even knew me. Unconditionally. Like a real mother. It makes me wish-- _think_ of things I haven’t in so long and it’s so hard--so much harder than I remember it...”

It was too much to see the man so torn up from all this, and to not even be able to properly _hold_ him. In a desperate move Erik stood and pushed the man into bed, slamming off the lamp and climbing in after him, holding him as tightly as possible, rocking him until the crying subsided. Charles was about run dry at this point, so it didn’t take long.

“Charles,” he murmured tightly, when he thought the man might be capable of hearing him again. “I don’t know how your mother could have been so awful to you. But I know it wasn’t your fault, _Helligkeit_. My mom loves you for the same reason that we all love you, that _I_ love you. Because you’re an extremely loveable person. I don’t know what was so wrong with your mother that she couldn’t see it, but I know it was _her_ defect, not yours.”

The man clutched him back, fitting himself fully in his arms, curling up as small as possible so that Erik seemed to envelop him completely.

“What do I do?” Charles asked, and if felt right that he should ask, that Erik should be part of his rescue list and not _just_ as a sex escape.

“We both know my love life before you wasn’t all that great,” Erik said. Charles was too spent to interrupt him, even though it sounded suspiciously like a tangent. “And when I met you I could hardly believe it, believe my luck. It seemed insane that my life could have someone as horrible as Magda, as horrible as most of the people I dated before you, and then also include you. It was too disparate. Either they never happened or you were a figment of my imagination. I don’t know why they treated me so badly and you treat me so well. But they’re gone, they’re in my past--you, _you’re_ my future.” Charles hugged him tighter, so he knew he understood, but he said it anyway. “I don’t know why your mom was so terrible, but I know you _deserve_ for my mom to love you as much as she does. Just let her.”

“How, _how_?” Charles huffed, trembling.

Erik had no idea. He’d never tried to tell Charles how to be positive and accept love before. He thought of what he’d tell himself, the day after Magda had left him and he hadn’t yet realized that that was a good thing, was something he should have gotten himself out of years before anyway.

“You have to let go, sweetheart. You have to let that fall away so that something better can fill its place. I love you and I’m here for you and you don’t have to try alone anymore.”

Charles was silent for a moment, but eventually, hugging him tighter, he said, “I’ll try.”

What more could he do? It wasn’t like Charles hadn’t been trying before. He’d been making himself sick trying _so hard_. But at least now they’d be trying together. Charles wouldn’t be expending half his energy hiding from Erik: there was nothing left to hide. They were in it together now, a team pulling in one direction. Tugging the man against him, bundling him in his arms, he felt this more surely than ever, and willed his sureness and optimism into the other man. Maybe Charles wasn’t fixed (Erik was no longer naive enough to think someone’s moods, their emotions, were things that could be fixed) but he knew he’d at least _helped_. And now he could keep helping. Which made him embrace the man all the more happily.

“I love you so completely, darling,” the man murmured, fighting loose enough to kiss Erik gently on the jaw, the cheek, the mouth. “I hope you know how much I appreciate your tolerating me.”

“I don’t tolerate you, I adore you. And I know it’s hard for you to understand right now, but so does my mother, because there’s no other _logical_ way to feel about you. She’s just being a good logical German... Of course, at my age, I’ve got to say that I think she’d be happy with any respectable guy who was in love with me. Or girl. Or intelligent life form. Really, this late in life she’s not all that picky.”

Erik was sure he’d undone all his good work when the brunet stiffened suddenly in his arms.

“What?” the man asked.

“I’m sorry—I mean she loves you of course, because you’re _you_ and you’re _wonderful—_ ”

“No, what were you saying?”

Erik gulped, unsure how to backtrack to the previous cozy emotions. How could he have ruined this all so quickly? It was unimaginable. He was the worst. “I’m sorry—“

“Erik, just _spit it out already_.”

“I was only saying that…well, you know…I’m no spring chicken anymore, and everyone, including me, was sort of starting to think I’d never find anyone, and even my mom’s hope was smoldering down to more of vigil at this point, and so, well, when we fell in love it was pretty much a _given_ that she was going to like you. What’s the alternative? Hate you and just hope that I find another miraculous person to be in love with me in time for her to see grandbabies?”

The man pushed up onto his elbows and although Erik couldn’t see him in the darkened room he could feel the Brit staring at him. He just wished he could tell if it was a good stare or a bad one. He was about to start apologizing again, but the brunet cut him off.

“Of course!” gasped Charles, which didn’t give Erik much information. He was much better informed when the man started laughing. “Of course! It’s not me! For God’s sake--you could take Janos home with you for all she cares! So long as you two loved each other she’d be head over heels for him at this point—beggars can’t be choosers!”

“Of all the people I could be hypothetically in love with you have to pick Janos?” Erik balked. What was wrong with...well Azazel at least;  he’d at least hope Charles would hypothetically pair him with someone smart.

Charles was in too good a mood now for such a meager hangup. He kissed Erik happily, if off-center, on the mouth.

“Of course she doesn’t really love _me_ , not yet--she met me for two seconds! She just loves that you’ve ended up with someone who’s not a total psychopath. You really just have to be a half-decent sort that a mum wouldn’t see breaking anyone’s heart, not terribly vain, reasonably polite, not a complete prick—she’s bound to love you!”

Erik badly wanted to argue. Edie didn’t love Charles because he was ‘reasonably polite’, for fuck’s sake. She loved him for all the same reasons Erik loved him: he was kind and generous and beautiful and loving and good. Edie didn’t love Charles because Erik loved him, _despite_ himself and regardless of his own personal worth. She’d been introduced to loving Charles through Erik and that was as much as Erik had had to do with it. If he and Charles ever, god forbid, broke up, Erik had no doubt that Edie would be the first one trying to get them back together and, should that prove impossible, would probably still be inviting Charles over for future Hanukkahs, filling him with his favorite foods and knitting him sweaters.

But he took a deep breath and didn’t say anything. This wasn’t about him, it was about Charles. If this was what Charles needed to think in order to accept a mother’s affection, even her _love_ , then Erik would support him..

“I’m glad you’re not upset.”

“Upset? Of course not! There’s nothing wrong with it. So she can’t afford to be picky, that doesn’t bother me. So she’d be happy with mostly anyone--who cares? Just because you’re the only one for me doesn’t mean I have to be the only one for her.”

“What about me? You’re the only one for me, too.”

“That’s a given.”

“I’m glad of that,” Erik laughed, stroking the man’s hair in the dark. “Are you going to be okay now?”

Charles quieted down, coming down off his high, but nuzzled into Erik’s palm. “You mean am I going to lock myself sobbing in the bathroom again?”

“Yes, that rather was the brunt of my inquiry,” he chuckled.

“I don’t know...I hope not. It just shows how much she loves you, really, how nice she is to me. Any kindness she shows me is really just a reflected kindness on your behalf. It’s nothing personal.”

Erik rolled his eyes, happy that the cover of darkness hid it.

“What was that?” Charles asked, sounding suspicious.

“What?” Erik squeaked.

“That. That general air of disapprobation.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he coughed, pulling the man in and cuddling him distractfully.

After a minute or so the man said, (rather drowsily; it had been a long day after all), “Now you have to tell me.”

“Tell you what?”

“Whatever it is you’ve been keeping from me all week. Only fair.”

Erik shook his head. He wasn’t surprised.

“Later, okay?”

Charles snuggled in tighter, tangling their legs together under the heavy covers.

“Later,” he agreed.


	14. Chapter 14

It had been a fucking hell of a week, full of emotional anxiety and shadowy dangers. Because of this (he liked to believe) Erik overslept. In fact, he slept to a degree he had previously imagined reserved for depressed people, or maybe someone on very heavy pain-killers with no responsibilities whatsoever. In fact, he slept as if he’d just finished a marathon, or a knock-down drag-out fight, which, emotionally-speaking, was pretty accurate. So he was only a bit surprised when he finally did awake and Charles was gone. Never before in their relationship had Charles ever managed to get out of bed without waking him. But Erik had never been as exhausted as this. If this were going to happen, it would make sense it was happening now. Unless...

Had Charles snuck out somehow, as secretively as humanly possible?

Erik jumped out of bed, awake immediately. After all that, had the man still run off to Paris? Charles’ huge suitcase was still there but Erik yanked it open anyway. It would be a simple thing for the man to pack a quick overnight bag. Actually, Erik wouldn’t put it past him to make a blitzkrieg escape and buy all new belongings once he was safely ensconced in France. Although everything seemed to be in place, this officially meant nothing.

Pulling on a couple sweaters and switching into jeans in order to better sleuth his wayward boyfriend down the frigid streets of Heidelberg, Erik slipped quietly into the living room. His bedding had been put away from the couch. Which meant his mother was already awake. Had she realized yet that Charles was gone? How was he supposed to cover for this? Maybe he could say Charles had taken a turn for the worse in the night, was at the hospital--no, she’d want to visit him. He’d been air-lifted back to America. No, she’d insist Erik go after him. Shit, what was he going to do?

There was a peal of laughter from the lit kitchen; Edie must be on the phone with one of her friends. So she couldn’t know Charles was gone yet. That was for the best.

More confusing, though, a man’s voice also coming from the kitchen.

What the fuck? What was this, some kind of geriatric boyfriend? God damn it, he bet it was that fucker Uwe from the bakery; he knew that guy had seemed way too interested in his mother. Gritting his teeth, he picked up a glinting letter opener from the end table and stalked to the kitchen. This guy had picked the wrong fucking morning to hit on his mother.

The paperknife made a metallic clatter on the kitchen floor when he dropped it, an apt soundtrack to his clanging surprise. His head felt remarkably akin to a ringing bell.

Edie and Charles looked up at him from their dual hover over the skillet, and shifted in tandem from surprised gapes to cheerful beams. Charles was wearing his new sweater. The cookbook was propped up against the wall. Edie’s arm was around Charles’ waist and Charles did not look as if that were killing him.

"Good morning, darling!” the man cheered “I thought we’d try out the new cookbook for breakfast. Hope you’re hungry!”

“ _We’re making French toast!_ ” Edie added giddily. “ _Look at us making real American French toast!_ ”

Erik snatched the kitchen stool underneath him before his legs gave out.

“The trick is cornflakes, which luckily weren’t too difficult to track down,” Charles was jabbering, flattening the bread in the pan, apparently oblivious. He looked so handsome, hand tucked adorably in his back pocket, hand-knit sleeves rolled up to his elbows, next to Edie, not flinching when she moved to rub his back.

 _“Charles is feeling much better_ ,” Edie pointed out. “ _I figured out what is was. Jetlag. The tiredness and not feeling well--it all makes sense. Jetlag is awful--your father used to get it something terrible when we’d visit you in America; you remember that? Although I guess it could also be that he simply missed you at night._ ” This was delivered with a wink that made Erik blush up to his ears. “And to imagine I was beginning to think he didn't like me!"

" _Everybody likes you, Mama_ ," he assured, wiping his eyes.

This did not escape Charles’ sixth sense for emotional curiosities, and the man turned to laugh at him, abandoning breakfast to take him in his arms.

“Aw, baby! Need to borrow a handkerchief? I’ve got some to spare.”

Erik didn’t even tell him not to call him that, just hugged him back forcefully, burying his face against the man’s stomach. He had no words. His heart was too full. Seeing Charles like this, happy and sunny and himself, so much himself, and seeing his mother so thrilled and deservedly pleased--it was too much. It was as if Charles had returned to him from a long and painful journey, one he hadn’t been sure the man would survive. And he’d come back not just whole but as perfect as ever. It was all Erik had ever hoped for. It felt like he’d been waiting his whole life for this, to have plural people in his life that made him this happy.

There was a click and whir and when Erik looked up he saw (through a light splashing of tears), his mom, camera in hand, wiping her own tears away.

“ _You two are so darling together_ ,” she sobbed. Erik nearly joined her when Charles laughed and waved her in, dragging them into a group hug. Was it possible he was still dreaming? Surreptitiously, Erik pinched himself hard, but still wasn’t convinced. At least, not until Irena burst into the kitchen, complaining.

“ _Is that food I smell? What, and no one thought to get me? Why do I even live here when everyone so obviously has such little care for my life? Do you realize with my low blood sugar issues I could die from such neglect? I would literally be given more care and affection from strangers on the street. That is the saddest thing I’ve ever heard. I’m too depressed to eat. But for my health I have to do what I have to do. Just bring me my rations in bed if you can remember to care for your poor sick miserable relative._ ”

“I guess I should get breakfast under way,” Charles laughed. Even Irena was no match for his rallying spirits. The man was truly back to normal, which overjoyed Erik all over again.

“Ignore her,” he insisted, pulling his two loves back to him and burrowing between their dual warmths. “If she starves to death I won’t have to listen to her anymore.”

“I don’t know...” Charles grinned. “I’m not sure her whole life hasn’t been spent in training to one day be a vengeful ghost.”

* * *

  


Erik could barely eat breakfast he was smiling so much. He had never really understood Christmas before, but he now fully got what people meant when they said “like a kid on Christmas”, because for the first time this applied to his life. His family hadn’t felt so happy, so complete, since his father had been alive. Edie seemed to feel similarly. She could hardly get through the meal without finding a million little excuses to jump up for something, hugging and coddling Charles on her way to each tax. At the moment she’d “forgotten” the milk and lovingly attacked the man upon her return, wrapping him in her arms before kissing him soundly on the cheek.

She took a moment to hiss at him over Charles’ head. “ _Frag ihn!_ ”

“Mama!” he growled back in warning, and with good reason.

“Ask me what?” Charles questioned, eating around her embrace as if his mind weren't contemplating running from the room in a panic.

Erik glared at his mother accusatorily but she didn’t notice. “ _Ah my genius kleinerSpatzi!_ ” she cheered instead, ruffling his hair before taking her seat happily, blind to the havoc she had wreaked.

Erik lied the best he could. “No clue. Maybe I’m supposed to propose to you?"

Charles eyed him through his lashes in that unbelievably sultry way he had as Edie released him and said, "Go on, then. Get on your knees."

"Only _one_ knee is necessary," he reminded, blushing hard.

Charles just smiled. "If you want me to say 'yes' you'd better be on the safe side and start with two."

"Go get your jacket on and I'll blow you at all the major monuments of my hometown, _Helligkeit_. What’s on the tourist agenda for today?”

"Actually," Charles admitted, finishing off his toast. "I was thinking we could spend today indoors."

“Indoors where? The museum?”

“No, indoors here.”

Erik practically fell out of his chair he was so shocked.

"You're fucking kidding me!" he balked, blocking his mother's blow for saying 'fucking'. "Yesterday I couldn't drag you home; now you're turning me down on a blow job at the student prison?" As far as Erik knew, Charles had never turned down a blow job in his entire life. Unfortunately, he was not given much time to think about it.

Edie might not know what it meant to 'blow' someone in English, but apparently 'blow job' was similar enough in German for her to figure that out and Erik was stuck brushing the taste of soap out of his mouth for the rest of the morning, glaring at the brunet because it was his fault. Absolutely his fault.

Realizing that Charles was serious about his plans for the day, Erik went back to the bedroom to get out of his jeans and at least one of his sweaters, switching to a full lounge ensemble of sweatpants, _single_ sweater, and the pair of embarrassingly ultra-soft socks Charles had gotten him with the snowflakes on them. No one needed to know. When he returned it was to Edie and Charles sitting shoulder-to-shoulder on the couch looking at his parent’s old wedding album. Rather than interrupt, Erik simply stood silently in the doorway, watching, wishing he had his mother’s camera so he could snap this one. Jumping with the idea, Erik snatched Charles’ phone where it was charging on the nightstand. But all thoughts of photo-taking fled before the incoming realization that Raven had called Charles nine times. _And left messages_.

What the fuck was the girl thinking? They had agreed! Loose lips sink ships! Why tell the man her phone was broken just to change her mind and call him a million times?! Shutting the door as surreptitiously as possible, Erik dialed her back.

“What the hell are you doing?” he growled in a stage-whisper down the line. “I told you--radio silence! Where’s Azazel? He’s supposed to be keeping an eye on you!”

“First off: that is so fucking patriarchal!” Raven shouted back at him. She sounded frantic in a way Erik had never experienced before, which immediately knocked him into stunned silence, allowing her to continue her tirade. “Second off: Erik, you have no idea what you’re talking about. Put my brother on the phone. You don’t understand. You haven’t been hearing all the messages he’s been leaving me, Erik. He said ‘Mochachino’! _You don’t understand!_ ”

Erik did understand, because ‘mochachino’ was also their safe-word, and the general signal for emergencies and a sundry of distasteful situations.

“Raven, Raven, it’s okay,” he said, trying to calm her. “It’s alright. Charles and I talked last night. He’s okay now.”

“You what?” the girl balked. “Without me?”

“Yes, without you! We’re capable of dealing with our problems without you, you know,” he huffed back.

Raven did not seem to believe him, or even particularly hear him.

“Is he smoking?”

Erik was almost too surprised to answer, coming up with only a winded, “What--how the hell--” before she interrupted his spluttering.

“Oh my god, he is!” she cried. “Put him on the phone! Erik, smoking is like the DEFCON-5 of Charles’ rampant anxiety, please, I’m serious, he needs me! Put him on!”

“Raven, he’s okay! That was yesterday! I helped him--I did it! He’s not smoking any more!”

“I’m getting on a plane,” she threatened. “I’m going over there. _Put my brother on the phone_.”

Erik rolled his eyes. He didn’t like to throw around the word “hysterical” but there weren’t many words left over for the woman at this point. It was obviously just better to give in, although Charles would be calming her much more than she would be comforting him, most likely. Erik would just have to hope for the best. Maybe Raven was too stressed to even remember Paris.

“Fine, I’ll get him. But he’s _fine_.”

Erik tried not to feel jealous over the absolutely thrilled way Charles said his sister’s name when Erik gave him the phone, watching the man bound to his room already chattering excitedly, muffled by not muted by the closed door.

“ _His sister_?” Edie asked, following with her eyes.

“ _Ja, being a total psycho_ ,” Erik groaned, taking Charles’ place beside her. “ _Oh well. I’ve got a few days with him to myself, at least._ ”

“ _What do you think is going to happen when he moves in with you?_ ” she balked. Erik was still enthused his mother had said ‘when’ and not ‘if’. “ _You think he’s just going to stop seeing his sister? Stop talking to her? They’re close. They’re always going to be close._ ”

“ _They could stand to be a little less close_ ,” Erik muttered, flipping through the wedding book, at pictures he’d seen a hundred times growing up.

Edie took it and flipped to the back, one of the last pages, a picture of Edie and Jakob, incredibly young, holding a baby, beaming, all smiles.

“ _If Ana had lived...I like to think you two would have been as close as Charles and his sister. I wanted that for you. To have someone with you, always, a friend no matter what._ ” She smiled, rubbing his arm. “ _And now you do._ ”

“ _I had that before, Mama_ ,” he chided, putting his arm around her shoulders.

“ _And so did Charles, with his own sister._ ” She winked at him. “ _But do you think that makes him love you any less? Does loving me make you love him less?_ ”

Frowning slowly, Erik had to admit she had a point. Charles loved him; Charles loved his sister. Charles might not tell Erik everything, but did that mean he told Raven everything? Was Raven getting anything Erik wasn’t? Rubbing his fingers along the edge of the paper, he cast an anxious glance at the closed door. What were they talking about? Was Charles telling her what he couldn’t tell him, was he telling her secrets Erik wasn’t privy to? Was he saying that all this, this morning, was just another lie, a deeper level of lying? Had this morning, this perfect morning, been a sham?

No, Erik couldn’t believe that. He couldn’t let himself believe that. If he doubted Charles he’d have to doubt of all of him, and he couldn’t risk that.

“ _Come on_ ,” his mother said, sensing his distraction and putting the book away. Standing, she took down their family chess set. Erik smiled, appropriately brought back to earth.

“ _I hope you’re ready to lose,_ ” he said.

“ _Why? Don’t tell me you’ve gotten any better since the last time I trounced you._ ”

“ _You are going to eat those words._ ”

“ _All talk,_ ” Edie yawned, and set up the chess board.

* * *

 

By time Charles finally emerged, Erik was just on the cusp of losing, and he was thrilled when the man held up the phone and said, “Raven wants to talk to you.” Not because he expected anything other than their usual bickering contest, but because it got him out of admitting defeat.

“ _Oh, this could take a while, Mama,_ ” he said, hand over the phone, even though that was very unlikely. “ _Here, you and Charles can finish it up._ ” He absconded to the kitchen, just in case she wanted to discuss Paris. What else was there for them to discuss? He was suddenly nervous. What if she still insisted on coming early? What had Charles told her?

“Well? What is it now?” he questioned gruffly. “You didn’t blab, did you? Because I’m serious, Raven, I will cancel that ticket faster than you can say ‘ _je suis desolée_ ’.”

“First off, I would never say that. I do not even know what that is. It sounds awful. Second off: I just...” she faltered, steeling herself. “I just wanted to say good job. With Charles, I mean. You’re right. He’s okay. Bravo, kid.”

Erik relaxed, smiled. It was a day of miracles.

“You mean it? He’s okay?”

“Well, as okay as that psycho ever is. Congrats on roping yourself a real loon.”

“Well...thanks...” Erik realized he should say something nice, too. “You’d probably have done it better. I mean you wouldn’t have let it go on as long. He wouldn’t have been smoking--or, trying to smoke.”

“Of course I would have done it better,” the woman sniffed. “I’m his sister. But you’ve proven you’re a pretty decent stand-in. I mean, if you have to run off to another continent without me to try your hand at it I mean.”

“Hey, I’ve got to try and stand on my own two feet sometime.”

“Well, you learned from the best, obviously. You done good.”

“That means a lot to me,” he said, and he there was no sarcasm in his voice. Raven noticed immediately.

“Jeeze, what are we, a bunch of chicks? What has Germany done to you? Is this your mother’s influence? Remember to reattach your balls before we meet in Paris.”

“I love you, too. See you in Paris, princess.”

He hung up, amazed at the sense of relief he felt. Charles back to normal had felt amazing, but now it felt real. He had actually done it. Without Raven, without anyone, just him and Charles, they had managed to get through it together. And now, suddenly, asking Charles to move in with him didn’t feel so daunting, didn’t seem like he had to travel halfway around the globe to get a script on how to do. He realized he’d been spending all this time, wringing his hands, dancing from foot to foot in a paroxysm of worry, due to a lack of confidence. It wasn’t just that he’d doubted Charles’ answer, he’d doubted his own ability. His ability to be there for Charles, in the way Charles needed someone to be there for him.

He’d been worried, at a certain level that if he did somehow convince Charles to pull himself away from his sister, to throw his lot in with Erik, that he would fail the mark. He was untried, had no experience taking care of him--what if, despite all his desire to succeed, he failed? Now, finally, for the first time, it felt as if he’d added something to his resume. He had something to point to and say, “See? I have proof I can do this, at least in some degree”. Returning to the living room he wrapped his arms around his boyfriend’s shoulders and kissed him roughly on the cheek.

Charles did not seem to notice, sitting before the chess set in shock instead. Erik saw his predicament immediately: he’d been check-mated.

“She beat me,” the man said to him in awe.

“She does that.”

“You were gone for like two seconds. She beat me in like two seconds. What is this?”

“Where did you think I got it from?” he teased, rubbing the man’s hair. He was still too overjoyed from his phone conversation to be appropriately sympathetic.

“I don’t know,” the man said, blushing. Which meant, like most people, Charles had assumed Erik’s dad had taught him.

“My dad was more of a checkers man,” he explained with a wink. “Come on, two on one. We can take her, right _Helligkeit_?”

Charles smiled up at him, no more tears, no more running away, just here and with him and happy, confident. “Together? We can do anything.”

 


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 2nd to last chapter!!!!!!!!!!!!

Monday morning came faster than the calendar had led Erik to expect. Long before he was ready, he found himself packing his bags, bundling up, forcing himself to the train station and freezing his ass off on the platform as they dragged out their goodbyes for as long as humanly possible. Not that he begrudged them that. If someone told him he had to say goodbye to his mother one second before it was actually dire, he’d break their nose. But he had to admit that he though, for the first time in his life, that Irena might be on to something. There was something logical, even intelligent, in saying goodbye from the warmth of your own home.

Honestly, he was surprised the woman had bothered to say goodbye to them at all. Each day with her had only brought a variation on the theme of 'get the fuck out'. Her complaints had become so constant and all-encompassing that Erik found the relative silence on the platform slightly unnerving. It spoke to Charles’ complete recovery that, by the end of it, even Irena had grown to adore him enough to say goodbye to him with a modicum of regret and warmth.

“He’s the only person who really understands what it is I’m going through,” she cried, finally releasing the man from her death-like embrace. That done, she removed herself bitterly to her room, wiping her eyes piteously, wailing all the way. Goodbies affected her more than anyone; she had such a delicate, sensitive emotional psyche. She couldn’t take it. Suffice it to say, Charles (for one) was welcome any time, especially so long as he managed to sneak back in some cold medicine. No one did cold medicine so well as the Americans.

The only good thing about leaving was that he wouldn’t have to see or hear from Irena again. Who knows, with her constantly precarious health, chances were surely good she’d be dead in no time. Or maybe some doctor or pharmacist would be driven to the edge of their sanity by her constant complaints and they’d simply snap her gigantic bird-like neck, as a Thanksgiving turkey.

These fantasies were driven from his head by his mother’s arms wrapping warm around him again as she renewed her sobbing into his scarf. He was sure he’d be sobbing too, except his tear ducts seem to have been frozen over. Edie obviously had more evolved tear ducts, although it probably helped that she was twice as miserable as him. She'd fallen so in love with Charles these past few days that it was like sending two sons away rather than just one. Still, she hadn't been distracted to the point where she couldn't load them down with tupperware, threaten Erik into eating more, and force a passing maintenance man to take their picture. She had only barely dried the last of her tears when Charles said, in his precious German : " _Ich liebe dich, Mama. Ich werde dich vermissen_ ," and she started sobbing all over again, wrapping her arms around the brunet's waist like she'd changed her mind and decided not to part with him after all. It made Erik decidedly nervous.

" _Mama, give him back. He can't stay here,_ " he warned, dragging his boyfriend back into his arms where he belonged. He wondered if he shouldn’t cache Charles away on the train before she tried again, but still he couldn’t bring himself to leave his mother before it was absolutely necessary.

" _Maybe if he doesn't want to live with you he could come live with me,_ " she sobbed hopefully.

" _Don't say that!_ " Erik balked, jumping to find anything wooden to knock on.

“What on earth are you doing?!” Charles laughed. His laugh had become common place now, after his miserably anxiety earlier in the week, so that it didn’t shock Erik to hear him laughing anymore. True to Raven’s diagnosis, he truly was okay. Somehow, despite all evidence, the harmless untruth of Edie being so desperate as to love absolutely anyone was holding up. "What did she say?"

"She's contemplating stealing you from me.”

“If it gets me indoors, I’m for it,” Charles groused, pressing his mittened hands over his ears, squashing his hat against them for warmth.

“ _He’s cold--get him inside,”_ Edie demanded immediately, bundling Charles tighter, nearly choking him with his scarf.

Erik opened his mouth to argue with her, sure that they had plenty of time, when some very official-looking man in a big puffy jacket came over and started waving them onto the train, blabbering about departure times and watchless tourists making them late.

“ _I guess that’s us_ ,” Erik said to his mother, struggling to keep his voice steady. They shared one last tearful embrace, her body feeling so small in his arms; it seemed as if she’d waste away to nothing by time he saw her next.

“ _Don’t worry,_ ” she told him, patting his hand and she helped him onto the train with a wink. “ _He’ll say yes. And when he does, I’m going to come visit you! I can’t wait!_ ”

Erik took a deep breath, nodded. He wasn’t sure she was right, but he’d fallen so in love with Charles all over again this week that he couldn’t fail to ask him even if it meant certain refusal. It had been all he could do to wait this long, after all.

It was purely a matter of logistics, as he kept telling his mother, as he kept telling himself. If Charles did say no he didn’t want his mother wandering the apartment, bereft and sobbing in front of him, shaming the brunet into changing his mind. He wanted Charles to say yes on his own merit. He had to hope that would be enough.

As they settled their luggage in the storage room, Erik’s phone went off.

" _Frag ihn_!" his mother hissed, and hung up after yet another rushed 'I love you'.

But that was ridiculous because it was only fifteen minutes till they switched trains in Mannheim--the trip was hardly long enough to justify taking off their jackets, much less putting life-altering queries to the younger man.

They got a window seat and waved to his mother on the platform, unwrapping themselves from all their extra layers.

"It'll be strange to be able to speak the language again," Charles hummed, folding his mittens. Edie had knit them in the last couple days and they were obnoxiously adorable, with a bright red cord to string them over Charles' shoulders like a child.

"You seemed to get by okay. By the end I'm pretty sure you and my mother were having purely telepathic conversations."

“She’s sweet,” Charles laughed, waving to her. “You know, I almost think she would love me regardless of all this. Well, I mean even if she weren’t just going to love absolutely anyone you seriously brought home at this age, she still might love me. I don’t think I was physically capable of being more charming, you know, after... But I guess we’ll never know!”

Erik rolled his eyes so hard he almost sprained them.

“What’s that?” the man questioned as Erik rubbed the over-strained orbs.

“What? Nothing,” he coughed, stopping immediately. “Wave goodbye--the train is leaving.”

Together, they waved back to his mother outside on the platform. She seemed so small, even bundled up as she was, wiping her eyes and blowing kisses. As the train pulled away she took a few steps to follow it before coming to a halting stop, waving them out of sight.

“You’ll miss her?” Charles asked, although it didn’t seem like much of a question.

“I miss her already,” Erik admitted. As much as he felt it though, eyes noticeably damp, he was hardly able to think about it.

After his burst of confidence talking to Raven and Charles’ miraculous transformation back into himself, Erik had just barely been able to stop himself from asking Charles to move in with him, right then and there. Seeing Charles back to his old self was like seeing him for the first time all over again. Watching the man smiling through breakfast, or struggling to beat his mother at chess, or trying out recipe after recipe in the kitchen; he was almost blinded by how much he loved him, how much he wanted to be with him, fully. It was everything he could do at any given moment not to throw himself on the man and beg him to move in.

He contained himself not because he was waiting for his mother or Logan or Count Dracula to to tell him how to ask Charles to live with him. It also wasn’t nerves (although he was of course nervous, the most nervous he’d ever been in his entire life). He’d decided to put it off purely for logistics. But logistics had officially run out. At least was on its last leg. When they switched trains in Mannheim they’d have hours until they reached Paris. They’d have just one full day together before Raven showed up, and Erik knew he could technically put it off a little longer. Enjoy that last day together, if that’s what it was going to be, he could ask him on the Eiffel Tower, or maybe try to trick him into it when Charles undoubtedly got distracted at the city of Science and Industry. But the fact was, he just couldn’t stand to wait longer than was absolutely necessary. He needed to know. He needed to know as soon as was at all feasible.

“Hello?” Charles said, tapping him on the skull. He realized he’d dazed off for a while there and blushed, grabbing Charles’ hand for a quick kiss. “You’ll see her again soon, I’m sure,” the man assured him, kissing his cheek.

“I know,” he said.

“We can’t both pout our ways through Paris,” Charles warned. “You without your mother and me without my sister. What a miserable pair we’ll make. Hardly appropriate for our first vacation all alone together, and in the city of love no less!”

“I’m not pouting,” Erik countered, kissing the brunet softly on the mouth. He could feel the man be convinced, the smile spreading across his lips as he warmed up to him. Charles’ fingers played with his collar as he broke the kiss, staying close.

“I suppose we’ll be able to come up with something to keep our minds off it, though,” Charles murmured, plying his lips. “That luggage compartments seemed very spacious. Maybe we can test my theory?”

“We’ll only be on the train a few more minutes,” Erik countered, pulling at his collar. He felt overheated, not just from the ardor of the moment but his increasing anxiety. Just a few more minutes...

“Well, I suppose after all these days I can wait a few more minutes,” Charles sighed and turned to watch out the window, holding Erik’s hand happily, completely unsuspecting. Well, apparently unsuspecting. With Charles it was never safe to say he was completely unsuspecting.

Erik closed his eyes and visualized success. He imagined Charles saying yes and helping pack up the man’s books from his house, their first dinner in their shared home, Charles cooking, Erik in charge of music, or the fireplace, or something comparatively non-hazardous. He tried to imagine it so clearly that it could be nothing but an actual image of their future, until he wasn’t looking into his imagination but the future. He had to believe he’d succeed, or he’d never get the words out.

_I love you. I haven’t lived with anyone since Magda, and I’ve never asked someone to live with me before, and I never thought I ever would, but I want to ask you. I want to ask more than I’ve ever wanted to ask anybody anything in my entire life. You mean everything to me. I want to share everything with you. I want to wake up together and go to sleep together and be together all the time, and misanthropic as I am, you know that I don’t take any of that lightly. I love you. Will you move in with me?_

“Are you hot?” Charles questioned. “Your hand is all sweaty.”

“Sorry,” Erik choked, and was about to try to find some sort of excuse for it when the automated voice came over the PA and saved him. “Come on,” he translated. “We’re arriving in Mannheim.”

“Then on to Paris!” Charles cheered.

“Then on,” Erik agreed. On to the future, whatever that may bring.

 

* * *

 

The train jounced softly beneath them. There was a family a few rows down from them with stacks of wrapped presents, laughing. Charles, fully stripped of his winter gear for the hours-long hot train ride, was looking out the window, humming a Christmas song quietly to himself.

Erik’s nerves had cropped back up. If Charles tried to hold his hand now there’d be no hiding their dampness, their shaking. But he couldn’t consider backing down. Charles warm beside him, the sunshine highlighting his chestnut hair, his dark green shirt shifting over his ribs with every breath, his blunt fingernails stroking the inside of his own knee absent-mindedly--he couldn’t see all of this and not formally request that he get to live with it every day.

“Charles,” he said, but it was barely a croak. He had to say it again, more clearly, reaching out and touching the man’s back for his attention.

“Ready?” the man grinned, turning to him with a glint in his eye. “We’ll have to make it a quickie. I didn’t see a lock on the luggage room door, but maybe we could barricade it, so long as we’re not long.”

“No,” Erik choked, pinning Charles’ arm to the armrest when he tried to rise. “No, it’s not that.”

Charles looked at him expectantly, but he wasn’t expecting anything sinister. His brow was unfurrowed, eyes unclouded by suspicion or worry. Was that about to change?

“Charles,” he started again. “I love you.”

“I love you, too, of course,” the brunet laughed back at him.

“And Magda--”

“Excuse me?”

“No, I mean, and Magda was...she and I...” The furrow had arrived. He should not have mentioned Magda. Why had he mentioned Magda? What a fuckup--could he just start over? “I’ve never asked someone...I mean Magda just--” Shit, what had he just said about mentioning Magda? This was getting so fucked up! He just had to skip to the ending, before he could mess this up any more. “I want us to sleep together.”

“We do,” Charles reminded.

“No, wake up together,” Erik corrected.

“Erik?”

“Charles,” he grit through his teeth. “I love you. Will you move in with me?”

He thought he’d feel relief, getting the question out, but it didn’t change anything. He was still waiting for the response. Only the response could set him free.

But Charles seemed incapable of response. His face was completely flummoxed, eyes wide, mouth slightly agape. He blinked once, twice, but didn’t come up with anything.

Erik was about to ask again, or start arguing, or something, when Charles’ eyes focused, not on him but on something off to the side, some memory.

“Frag ihn,” the man murmured to himself. “Shit,” he hissed, rubbing his hands through his hair.

Erik couldn’t ask for clarification, he was still paralyzed, waiting for a response.

“I thought...” Charles gasped, breathless. “Shit I thought...I don’t know, you were going to ask if your mom could join us in Paris. Have a couple days to ourselves, she flies over. Trains over. Whatever.”

“You did?”

“I was going to say okay.”

So now Erik knew the answer to this fake hypothetical questions. Now what about his actual question?

“So?” he croaked.

Charles seemed to remember he was sitting there, was awaiting a response. His brows were furrowed. When he looked at Erik it was a glance, it was furtive.

“Can I...” he murmured. “Can I think about it?”

Erik’s heart froze, immediately froze, rattled in his chest like a piece of ice in a glass, settling to the bottom, chilling his feet, all his extremities. Everything was numb, with the only feeling one of flight, of immediate retreat. But, at the same time, Charles had not said no.

“Of course you can think about it,” he heard himself gasp out, as if from far away. “Think about it all you want. I--I’m going to...to get a drink. In the dining car. I’ll be in the dining car.”

He stumbled to his feet, stumbled away as though on stilts, and was crushed anew when Charles didn’t stop him, didn’t say anything to prevent him from leaving. When he glanced back the man was completely preoccupied. Erik wasn’t even sure the man had noticed him leaving.

 

* * *

 

When he got to the dining car he considered getting a beer but then got a Scotch instead and downed it one go. He immediately felt bad--it was good scotch and he’d barely tasted it. But at the same time he felt better, warmer, like his hearing was coming back, like feeling was coming back, even though that feeling was panic.

What had he done? He’d been right all along: he never should have asked. He could have lasted another ten years on blissful ignorance probably--look how long he’d lasted with Magda without ever once thinking anything about it. All his dread had been for a reason, had been warning him not to ask for too much from this life.

He had a boyfriend he loved and who loved him--what the hell had he been thinking, reaching for more than that? Who deserved more than that? Especially him?

He could barely hold a civil conversation with anyone on the face of the earth.  Babies literally broke into tears in his mere presence. By some miracle Charles could stand to be within ten feet of him without cringing, and what did he do? He went and ruined it, thinking he deserved anything more than what he had.

Maybe they wouldn’t break up over this right away, maybe not tomorrow or next month, but a 'no' was still an eventual death to every perfect, magical, loving thing he had with Charles right at this moment.

“Another one,” he told the bartender. But of course he immediately realized he shouldn’t. Charles _would_ find him, after all, eyes down, apologetic, telling him thanks ever so much for the offer, that was so sweet of him, really, it was very touching... _but_... And Erik could not be drunk for that. If he were the slightest bit drunk for that he would start crying, there would be no stopping it.

“A beer,” he corrected. “Just give me a beer. I don’t care which.”

That was setting himself up to get landed with the most expensive beer on hand, but he found he couldn’t care. There was nothing on earth left to care about. His heart was trembling with the fear of being broken.

 

* * *

 

He was on his second pint and had just about frightened himself into a panic attack with all the imagining of things he wouldn't be able to do with Charles once they inevitably broke up and his hands were shaking when Charles burst into the dining car, door slamming raucously in his intensity.

Everyone stared at him at moment, his hair and clothes mussed, his face deeply red and a bit damp. Erik nearly jumped up, thinking something had happened, but when the man saw him he shrank back slightly. Charles coughed nervously into his fist, crumpling a sheath of paper in his free hand, scuffling his feet on the carpet before shuffling his way anxiously over to the bar.

Erik turned back to his drink, too nervous to even look at him. He stared at the shelves of drinks instead as Charles ordered a faint double whiskey on the rocks.

Charles didn't drink whiskey.

Well, he drank everything, really--but he didn't _seek out_ whiskey. When the bartender got him his drink Charles didn't attempt to chat the man up at all, not even in the slightest, even though there was decent chance the man could speak English, or maybe French. He tipped back half his drink in one go, hissing, and then was silent again.

“I couldn’t remember where you said you’d gone. I’ve been looking a whole half the train,” the man said weakly, and then lapsed back into silence.

Erik didn't say anything. He didn't have the slightest clue what to say. He wracked his brain trying to come up with something, anything, but then Charles was opening his mouth to speak again and his brain could only focus in on those words, the bearers of his fate. Maybe Charles would simply beg for more time, put it off. Erik could do that--he'd much rather do that than get a flat 'no'. It wasn't looking like he'd have that kind of luck, though, when Charles said, wavery and insecure, "I haven't been completely honest with you, Erik."

His heart went silent in his chest, wanting to hear every word as much as the rest of his body. What did that mean? Erik's mind, freed up from background noise like breathing, sped: Charles was having an affair, Charles was secretly married, he was an alien, he had a baby stashed away somewhere.

"I can't...I can't live with you...until you know..." Charles took a ragged breath and clutched his sheet of paper. Erik knew it must be making that distinctive crumpling noise of paper, but he couldn’t hear it. He was deaf to everything but Charles’ following words.

"I'm not actually a tidy person," the Brit gasped out in one breath, downed the rest of his whiskey at once and immediately ordered another.

Erik just stared at him, and Charles fidgeted under his gaze, blushing hot but not daring to meet his eye.

"What?" he croaked.

Eyes squeezed shut against the humility, Charles continued in a breathless rush. "I know that my place is always nice when you come over, but it's a sham. Actually I...I have a maid come in once a week to clear the whole thing out! I just...I hate doing dishes and there's always clothes all over the floor, or books or dishes forgotten everywhere...I just wanted you to know before you really asked me to live with you!"

Erik threw his head back and laughed.

"Are you kidding?" he cackled mirthfully.

"What?" Charles balked, staring. He supposed laughing wasn't a good response to such a heartfelt confession, it was just...

"I've been to your office, Charles--I know you're second only to Logan in your lazy housekeeping. For fuck's sake...the sheer number of dishes I've had to pick up after you say at my place..."

"I'm a sight better than Raven," Charles argued back, offended.

"You're exactly as bad as Raven, you just make an effort to _hide_ your mess."

"That's not all," Charles persevered bitterly, checking his paper to be sure that wasn't all. "I...I watch...damn it, I watch reality TV okay?"

Erik watched him carefully as he nursed his second whiskey, not sure if the color to his cheeks was embarrassment or drink or both.

"What,” he asked slowly. “Like...cooking shows?"

Charles glared at him from the corner of his eye, as if he was being purposefully naive.

"More like American's Next Top Model. I mean like the really trashy reality TV. You have no idea how hard it's been to date you and miss The Bachelorette every week. I have to watch it at work and erase my search history."

"But..but you’re smart!" Erik gasped.

Charles' lips twitched, not into a smile, but into a miserable frown. He sank into his whiskey, shoulders slumping. "I understand if you don't want to live with me anymore," he muttered.

Erik grinned.

"What else is on your list?"

Charles finished his drink and ordered yet another before he checked. At this rate he was going to be well and truly drunk in just a couple more confessions. 

"Sometimes I make a big batch of brownie batter and I don’t even cook it. Moira and I just sit on the couch watching Real Housewives of Atlanta and just spoon it in. Sometimes we put booze in it and call it Alcohol Pudding.”

Erik couldn’t help it--he laughed. He managed to choke it down enough that it was almost a chortle, but Charles looked at him anyway, anxiety easing into a sort of blushing amusement.

He didn't look so nervous when he glanced at his paper again.

"I listen to pop music."

Erik slapped his hand on the counter.

"I _knew_ it! I _knew_ Raven didn't preset all the stations in your car on a prank! You cheeky liar!"

"I'm sorry!" Charles wailed. "But you always gag when they play them at the grocery store or mall and I just couldn't cop to it!"

"So you blamed that trash on your sister?!"

Charles gasped, scandalized, and huffed back, "Lady Gaga is _not_ trash! And if you live with me you're going to be hearing a lot more of her!"

Erik grimaced unhappily. Could he tolerate pop music and reality TV for the love of his life?

"Okay, okay, move on--what's next?"

A check of the paper and Charles was ready with the next article on his agenda.

"I'm going to jerk off."

It was impossible for his brain to deal with a sentence like that. It just made a shrill humming noise as all units went temporarily offline and he stared at his boyfriend abjectly.

"Like...right now?”

Rolling his eyes, Charles smacked his arm. "I mean if we live together! I mean, it's not anything against you, it's just a fact and I want you to have all the facts beforehand. My libido just runs higher than yours, and it's unrealistic to think that we're both going to be in the mood at the same time all the time. At some point we're going to be on different schedules or something and it's going to happen and I just don't want your feelings to be hurt when it happens."

Erik nodded gamely. He doubted this was a warning he needed to reciprocate: Charles was right that his libido ran higher than Erik’s. And that was Erik’s libido _now_ , when it was running twenty to the dozen just doing its best to keep up with Charles'. God, he couldn’t imagine what the man would think if he knew the sort of libido he used to survive on with Magda. He thought they’d probably managed to go a year or more with no sex. Charles would probably keel over from the shock of it. Or offer for Erik to see a therapist to help him recover from such a trying, traumatic time.

"Got it. Anything else I need to know?"

Charles took a fortifying breath. "You know how social you think I am?"

"...Yeah..."

"I'm actually perhaps twenty-five percent more social than that."

"You're already running at one hundred percent, how can you get twenty-five percent more than that?"

"Do you remember that committee meeting I go to every Thursday?"

"Yes..."

"That's actually kind of my date night with my friends. We go to concerts or movies or bars or any stuff like that."

"But you hang out with your friends all weekend as it is!"

"Only one night of the weekend! You can't expect me to only see my friends once a week!"

Erik had fully thought that he could and was worried to find out that he couldn't. When he had imagined Charles living with him he had mostly imagined their books mixed together on his shelves, Charles' expensive sheets on his bed, Charles cooking in his kitchen and Erik doing their dishes. He had not thought of Charles' shit TV programs on his TV or his awful pop music on his stereo, or his near-constant socializing: friends over for wine, for movies, for dinner, for any excuse Charles came up with anytime Charles felt like it. His worry apparently bled through to his face because Charles commented.

"Maybe you should rethink this," the Brit murmured softly.

Erik did rethink it. His rethinking mainly focused on the fact that he was less than perfect as well and that if he was lucky enough for Charles to agree to look past his imperfections and live with him then he could certainly return the favor.

"I,” he started bravely. “Am disgustingly lazy. I mean you will be physically disgusted by how lazy I can be."

"I knew you were lazy!” Charles scoffed. “I mean, for the number of times you insisted that sitting with me on the couch all night was the most romantic possibility available, I rather assumed..."

"Well I'm sorry, I didn't have the opportunity to come up with a list of _surprising_ things to warn you against," he complained. "Although in my defense I'm actually lazier than you think I am. I've probably left my house more since dating you than I have since I bought it."

“Okay, okay,” Charles soothed, waving his hands in a rather tipsy _calm-down_ motion.

“And I listen to _The World Tomorrow._ ”

“You do not!”

“I do! And I like it!”

“But it’s run by bigoted right-wing fundamentalist assholes! They have an entire program devoted to propagating Creationism!”

“Well I don’t listen to all the programs, do I? And anyway, you watch _The Bachelorette._ ”

“You are not allowed to throw that in my face if we live together!”

“Where’s the fun in that?”

"We should discuss technicalities as well," Charles suggested, gulping his whiskey again.

"What like...what you'll bring?" he asked, heart fluttering, because discussing technicalities was discussing the future. This conversation he fucking loved: he would finally be able to actually visualize what his house would look like. He'd find out if Charles meant to bring that gorgeous couch of his or if Erik would have to continue using his shitty one, he'd discover whether his bedroom would now consist of Charles' dark teak bedframe or his own metal one.

But instead Charles decided to absolutely demolish his bubble.

"I want to pay the mortgage. Or at least the property tax."

Erik grimaced with disgust. "No."

"Then I can't live with you. I'm sorry but I don't want this to be like a free ride, I want shared responsibility. I'm an adult, not your rent boy and not your child. I get to help care for us or I'm out."

Erik glared but Charles was too tipsy for it to have any effect.

"What about me? I don't want to be your gutter-boyfriend getting his house paid for by his sugar daddy."

"That's not what this is!" Charles balked.

"Then how come you want to pay my _whole_ mortgage instead of going halves with me, hmm? Because you're rich and I'm just measly middle class."

"No!" Charles argued, but he didn't have any argument beyond that, just a defensive blush.

"I can pay my mortgage just fine without a rich boyfriend. I've been managing fine for the last fifteen years or so, you know."

"I know!"

"Then you'll stop with this pay-poor-guy's-mortgage-for-him crap?"

Charles pouted into his drink, finally nodded.

"But I want to pay for something," he demanded. "I want us to be equal in this thing."

Erik shrugged. "You can buy groceries, how's that?"

"And the property tax?"

Erik grumbled non-commitally.

" _Eriiik_."

Rolling his eyes, Erik finally agreed.

Technicalities got them through another half an hour and gave the alcohol enough time to hit home.

“Raven,” Charles said, sitting up with a drunken jolt.

Erik’s heart stilled in his chest.

“You know she can’t live with us, right? Right, Charles?”

It took the man a minute, took longer than he was comfortable with, but eventually Charles nodded.

“But,” the brunet quantified. “She gets a key. And she can come and go as she likes.”

“She can have a spare key, but she knocks. She has to knock, Charles. She can’t just come barging in any time she wants.”

Charles smiled and nodded, and Erik realized with his easy agreement that there was no way Raven was going to go in for that. He would get Charles, but Raven would claim her right to him whenever she damn well pleased, and he was just going to have to accept that. Really, on the whole, he was still coming out the winner.

“Eventually,” he decided to warn, in the same vein, “My mother may have to move in with us. I mean, when she’s really far along. I’ll want her close enough to keep an eye on. It could be a long time from now, but you never know...That’s...that’s not going to be a problem is it?”

Charles smiled at him, kissed his cheek.

“No, that won’t be a problem, darling.”

Sighing, body melting with relief, Erik grinned at him, and Charles smiled tipsily back.

“So we’re really going to do it, eh? We’re moving in together.”

Erik couldn’t even respond, too happy for words, just embracing the man to keep himself from crying with joy. Charles gripped him back, nuzzling into his cheek and whispering in his ear, “You’ve just _got_ to fuck me now.”

Erik didn't really think he could get away with fucking his boyfriend on a train--it took too long, you had to get too naked, and it caused too much mess. But they were nearly in Paris by now, and he couldn’t think of a better way to spend their very first night alone together abroad than by locking themselves in their hotel room and very _thoroughly_ celebrating.


	16. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OH MY GOD I FINALLY FINISHED IT'S A CHRISTMAS MIRACLE.

"Stoooooooooop!" Alex groaned, both hands over his ears as he collapsed across the bar. "I can't take it anymore!"

Erik stopped whistling long enough to reply. "You complain when I'm grouchy. You complain when I'm happy. Why don't you make up your mind?" Shaking his head, he went back to cleaning the espresso machine, and back to his whistling.

The blonde turned on him angrily. "Are you bipolar? Why can't you be a normal guy with normal moods? Why does it have to be Wes Craven monster haunting our nightmares or Disney princess, singing to birds and wafting around the cafe like your mouse friends sewed your outfit this morning, with absolutely _no_ middle ground?"

"If you call me a Disney princess again I'm going to show Wes Craven a thing or two about monsters," he growled, finishing wiping down the espresso machine and tossing the wet towel at Alex's head. "Now go close up shop--I'll count out."

"We've still got ten minutes left," Alex grumbled after shucking the towel from his face.

Erik shrugged. "No one's going to come in in ten minutes. Close it down."

"Sure but when it's Lorna waiting up for me you suddenly discover stock that needs sorting at ten at night."

"Your girlfriend is not as pretty as my boyfriend," Erik shrugged, taking the boy bodily from his petulant stance and pushing him to the front of house. "Now close it up."

"Okay, everybody," Alex cried out to the few customers hiding out from the spring rain. "The Shark's got to go try out a new page of the Kama Sutra on his live-in boyfriend. Everybody out."

He considered correcting the boy, but then decided he didn’t have time. Although he and Charles had worked their way through the Kama Sutra long ago (Charles considered it a rite of passage) it was not deemed worthy of their inaugural screws in Their House. _Their_ house, their house _together_ , with _their_ things, was simply too good for something so paltry and cliched (in Charles’ expert opinion), and Erik couldn’t manage to complain as Charles turned to his own deep repertoire of truly inspired sexual fantasies in order to properly celebrate their moving in together.

Erik had technically heard that it was good luck to have sex the first night in a new house (although he suspected he may have heard this from Charles himself at some point). Charles agreed that this was a good _start_ , but if you really wanted to do it right it was best to inaugurate every single room. After clarifying that they didn’t have to manage this all on the first night, Erik was fully on board. Thus, they had now been living together for two blissful, amazing, magical, cock-exhausting months and after working their way bit by bit through the list, Erik was now fairly certain Charles was grasping at straws.

Their first actual night in the house together had been rather unofficial. It turned out Charles had a lot of stuff, so on night one he was still only about half moved, everything still in boxes (this was still an ongoing issue as there appeared to be nothing Charles needed so desperately that he’d rather put it away rather than shift endlessly in boxes for it for the rest of his life). It had been an exhausting, very social day moving everything in. It turned out, of course, that Charles had way too many friends willing to help him move in, or slow down his moving in with food breaks, nostalgia breaks, and chit chat breaks. Additionally, they’d had to move the last of Magda out, including their cursed bed. It turned out Charles was not willing to continue living out of the first floor bedroom just because Erik had once had a crazy fiance.

Their first night had consisted of sore muscles, disorganized boxes everywhere, lots of Chinese food, and a mattress on the ground (Charles’ bed had been a lot easier taking apart than putting together). Still, it had been perfect. As the culmination of putting Charles’ belongings in his house, putting Charles’ art on his walls, Charles’ furniture replacing his rickety crap, it could be nothing but perfect. It was them; tired, no frills, just together and celebratory, honest and so right.

But he couldn’t say Charles’ ingenius ice-breakers for the rest of the rooms were any less them, or any less perfect.

In the upstairs spare room that Charles had turned into his home office, the brunet had played the hard-nosed teacher while Erik was the wayward student earning himself one last chance to pass. In the kitchen, Erik was a fiery chef and Charles was his charming maitre-d’. In the huge tub of the master bathroom, Charles was a marine biologist and Erik was a selkie (he’d had to Google it).

But when they’d finished up in the downstairs bedroom (now relegated to a guest room, almost certainly to be Raven’s home away from home) as fake teenagers keeping their voices down to avoid the wrath of Erik’s imaginary parents, Charles had rolled over onto him, panting, and said, “Next up, the attic! I’m thinking haunted house storyline. How’s the insulation up there?”

It was then that Erik realized when Charles said _every_ room in the house he meant it to a degree Erik had not originally anticipated. In this way, Erik found himself getting fucked in the closet playing two partiers hiding out at coat check. It was also how they ended up doused in flour in the pantry (he knew he should have replaced that rickety shelf). Charles had already scheduled the back yard for a werewolf theme as soon as it got warm enough. Because of this, Erik had been amused rather than confused when Charles finally responded to his fifth alarm, got out of bed for work, and whispered “I’ll wait up for you tonight. I’m in need of an engine tune-up and you’re just the mechanic to take a look at it” before kissing him a lingering goodbye.

So, yes, Erik couldn’t say that he saw the need to stay open those last ten minutes. He’d much rather run home and change into the mechanic’s jumpsuit Charles would have provided “for authenticity’s sake”, just to get peeled back out of them...

Time to go home.  

"Are you seriously this slow? I'm already done with cash _and_ credit cards!" Erik growled as Alex huffed around sloppily with the mop.

"Just go drop the bags, I'm practically finished!" the boy exclaimed, which was true but only because he was doing such a godawful job of it. Erik pretended he didn't notice because if he actually noticed he'd have to say something about it, and then Alex would have to start over, and damn it but his libido did _not_ have that kind of time.

"Out, out, out," he demanded, ushering Alex to the backdoor.

"I didn't sweep the back room!" the boy said.

"It'll still be there tomorrow, and so will you if you don't get the hell out of here and stop giving me trouble!"

Alex rolled his eyes dramatically but dutifully walked off. "Tell Charles ‘hi’ for me. Except...you know...not _during. UGH._ "

 

* * *

 

Erik tried to call Charles on the way home but the man didn’t pick up. He wasn’t sure why this disappointed him. He was going to see the man in less than fifteen minutes, after all. It was strange, but even though they saw each other _literally_ every single day, woke up together, ate breakfast together, dinner, cuddled together on the couch watching terrible reality TV, Erik still couldn't seem to get through a day without calling him, sometimes with purpose and sometimes just to fill himself up with the man's voice, his laugh, his audible affection.

Probably the brunet was on the line with his sister. Now that they didn't live together for once in their lives they were on the phone to one another almost constantly. Well, when Raven wasn’t bursting into their house anytime she felt like, that was, driving him mad at every opportunity. Oh god--he hoped no one had decided to drop by. Charles was supposed to tell him if anyone did, just as warning, so he could prepare himself, but Charles could be forgetful with other people around to distract him. What if Moira had decided to stop in ‘just because’? Or Logan? Or one of the dozens of other friends Charles had that seemed to believe visiting him at home was allowed? He would strangle them. Surely in such a situation a temporary insanity defense  would hold up in court. He’d be playing a mass murderer, not a mechanic. He got the feeling Charles would not find this as attractive.

Luckily, when he pulled up, there were no cars in the driveway (he had to assume Charles’ was awaiting debauching in the garage). Seemingly all of their lights were on. Charles’ rain boots and umbrella were outside the door. There was a spring-themed wreath on their door these days, with bright yellow flowers and blue glittery baubles. His house had never looked more lived in or loved and two months in Erik still shivered with ecstasy to see it.

Home, rather than a place he stayed at overnight because there was not a bed in his office, was now _home._ Charles on the couch with the cat and a space free beside him, or setting his plate at the dinner table, TV or music or fireplace going in the background, or walking in the door and leaving his shoes and jacket strewn all about, made it so. It took a moment of sitting in his car to gear himself up for the joy of it all before he could stumble out and rush to the door.

Because of the lack of cars, Erik felt confident enough in their privacy to call out as he entered, "Strip down, _Helligkeit,_ this mechanic is primed and ready to get under that hood!" The cat was the sole respondent.

Charlie, now rescued from the icy streets as a makeshift welcoming present for his boyfriend, sprinted over to wind around his legs, apparently not averse to this proposition. Although Charles insisted on calling him ‘Magnet’, Erik did not let that stop him from calling the thing Charlie, at least in his head. He picked Charlie up to purr against his throat and tried to figure out how the room could possibly be empty.

Well, empty besides Charles’ mess spread out everywhere. Erik had always been so neat and tidy (if his mother couldn’t teach him to cook she was at least going to teach him to be clean) so this was the hardest thing to get used to, living with Charles. When the brunet had warned him that he was messy, he had not been approaching anything near exaggeration. At first Charles had made a real effort to be as clean as humanly possible, which still fell short of how clean Erik usually was. That hadn’t lasted long, though, and by week two Charles was already trying to sneak in a maid to clean up after him. Erik had vetoed that immediately, thus the dirty dishes that were still set up at the dining room table where Charles had probably eaten dinner, the wine bottle and glass on the coffee table, Charles’ jacket and satchel at the ottoman where he was obsessed with leaving them, the box half spread across the living room floor that Charles was probably “going through” (aka, procrastinating against unpacking).

He realized the dining room, living room, and hallway light being on meant very little as Charles played fast and loose with the electric bill.

“I like it to look lived in,” the man shrugged at his shocking waste of electricity. “I don’t want you coming home to a dark house.”

“Charles?” he called, nuzzling Charlie’s fur. Silence. Could be holed up on the phone with his sister...or...

Erik set the cat down and ran to the garage, but it was dark and cold, and _empty_ , no sultry brunet draped across the hood of his car. Frowning through his disappointment, he headed upstairs, struggling against the urge to detour and clean up Charles’ mess.

The bedroom light was on, illuminating the man nestled warmly in bed, still dressed, if the peek of the dress shirt collar against his cheek was any indication.

Chuckling to himself, Erik stood at the doorway a second, just taking it in: the man’s phone charging on _his_ nightstand, his hair an untidy mess on _his_ pillow, still the flannel sheets with the penguins Charles had just _had_ to have when he saw them in the shop. They’d be coming off soon, as the weather was quickly warming. Still, for now they made a pretty adorable tableau, sleepy Charles cuddling with a pillowfull of adorable ice-skating penguins. Erik approached for a closer view, climbing very gently into bed so as not to wake the man, taking in the sight of his sleep-pink cheeks, eyelashes brushing his freckles, sleepy breaths puffing from slightly parted lips.

The living portrait didn’t last long as Charles’ phone started going crazy on the nightstand, buzzing and chirping. Seemingly without waking, Charles reached out behind him, hand hitting immediately upon the snooze button in a well-practiced move Erik recognized from ten times every single morning since they’d moved in together.

Turning back, the man reached out to him instinctively, stretching and tugging him closer, stroking his shoulder, his hair, his cheek, slowly blinking awake.

His blue eyes went immediately wide.

“Shit,” he huffed, rubbing his face. “Shit, what time is it?”

“I just got home,” Erik grinned, slipping closer into his arms, stroking his face, memorizing the planes with his fingertips.

“I got sleepy. I was just going to take a little nap. Set my alarm but...”

“No alarm has yet met the challenge of waking you,” Erik chuckled. Eyes closed, Charles just hummed dreamily.

“You’re going to be a mechanic right? I put my car in the garage. Just need a second to wake up...” Judging by that groggy voice, Erik thought it’d take more than a quick second, or two, or three... He leaned up on his elbows, pushing Charles onto his back with a kiss.

“I’ve got a better idea,” he murmured against Charles’ pliant mouth.

“Hmm?” Charles questioned, hands framing his face, arching up to deepen their kiss.

“You be the sleepy boyfriend,” he suggested between kisses. “I’ll be the man who is completely, head-over-heels in love with him.”

“That I think I can manage,” Charles grinned, wrapping him in his warm arms. “And after all, the car _will_ still be there tomorrow.”


End file.
